• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

How to incorporate mindfulness into psychotherapy

August 1, 2014 by Greater Good Science Center

Sitting Together: Mindfulness-based psychotherapyMind­ful­ness is good for you. In thou­sands of stud­ies, moment-to-moment, non-judg­men­tal atten­tion has been shown to improve well-being, strength­en rela­tion­ships, increase focus and atten­tion, and even boost our immune systems.

So it’s no sur­prise that ther­a­pists have tak­en an inter­est in using mind­ful­ness with their patients. The poten­tial for ben­e­fit is clear­ly great. But how can ther­a­pists actu­al­ly incor­po­rate mind­ful­ness into their prac­tice? And, is it always help­ful to patients?

To get answers to these ques­tions, look no fur­ther than Sit­ting Togeth­er: Essen­tial Skills for Mind­ful­ness-Based Psy­chother­a­py (Feb­ru­ary 2014; 240 pages). The authors—Harvard-based psy­chol­o­gists Susan Pol­lak and Ronald Siegel, and clin­i­cal social work­er Thomas Pedulla—provide a wealth of research demon­strat­ing the ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness for both ther­a­pists and patients, along with detailed guid­ance on when and how mind­ful­ness prac­tices might be use­ful in spe­cif­ic ther­a­peu­tic situations.

There seems to be lit­tle con­tro­ver­sy over ther­a­pists prac­tic­ing mind­ful­ness them­selves, and the authors high­ly rec­om­mend doing so. In sev­er­al stud­ies, researchers found that ther­a­pists who prac­tice mind­ful­ness expe­ri­ence less burnout, more self-com­pas­sion, and a bet­ter con­nec­tion with their patients, lead­ing to more well-being for ther­a­pists. Addi­tion­al­ly, some research shows that ther­a­pists who prac­tice mind­ful­ness are more high­ly rat­ed by their patients.

Ther­a­pists can eas­i­ly incor­po­rate mind­ful­ness into their days as clin­i­cians, the authors write. They sug­gest tak­ing a mind­ful eat­ing break or using an unex­pect­ed “no-show” hour to eschew paper­work in favor of mind­ful med­i­ta­tion, which can help ther­a­pists decrease resent­ment and devel­op more self-com­pas­sion. Sim­ple mind­ful­ness prac­tices like these can help ther­a­pists tap into their own joy and increase their tol­er­ance for expe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cult emo­tions, ben­e­fit­ting them­selves and their patients.

But ther­a­pists need to take more care when sug­gest­ing mind­ful­ness prac­tices for their patients, accord­ing to the authors. Mind­ful­ness involves prac­tic­ing three basic skill sets, each with dif­fer­ent effects:

  • Con­cen­tra­tion, or focus­ing atten­tion on a fixed object of aware­ness, which can help you under­stand the way your minds work;
  • Open mon­i­tor­ing, or pay­ing atten­tion to what­ev­er is pass­ing through your con­scious­ness, which can help you remain curi­ous and open to what­ev­er emerges in life; and
  • Accep­tance, which involves a devel­op­ing a com­pas­sion­ate stance towards your expe­ri­ence and your­self. Though each skill is impor­tant to mind­ful­ness, any one can poten­tial­ly help or hin­der a patient’s healing.

For exam­ple, patients who are very anx­ious and jit­tery may not be able to sit still and focus on their breath with­out increas­ing their anx­i­ety; they might instead ben­e­fit more from walk­ing med­i­ta­tion or focused atten­tion on some­thing out­side them­selves, such as sounds in their envi­ron­ment. A woman stuck in an abu­sive mar­riage may not ben­e­fit most from lov­ing-kind­ness med­i­ta­tions, instead need­ing to con­nect with her anger through just talk­ing about her sit­u­a­tion and con­sid­er­ing her options. Mind­ful­ness prac­tices don’t always aug­ment ther­a­py, but they can cer­tain­ly help in many situations.

The authors guide ther­a­pists through the cir­cum­stances to con­sid­er before pre­scrib­ing mind­ful­ness prac­tices for patients. For exam­ple, ther­a­pists should be expe­ri­enced prac­ti­tion­ers them­selves and take into con­sid­er­a­tion the readi­ness of their patients to han­dle mind­ful­ness expe­ri­ences. They must under­stand how dif­fer­ent mind­ful­ness prac­tices impact people—i.e. know­ing whether the prac­tice offers a sense of peace and safe­ty, which some accep­tance prac­tices do, or whether it inten­si­fies aware­ness of thoughts and emo­tions, which con­cen­tra­tion or open aware­ness prac­tices might do.

These and oth­er issues, such as the strength of the ther­a­peu­tic rela­tion­ship, should be con­sid­ered before imple­ment­ing mind­ful­ness with patients, they warn.

Patients may not be open to the idea of mind­ful­ness because of reli­gious or oth­er rea­sons. In this case, the authors sug­gest that ther­a­pists intro­duce mind­ful­ness as a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-proven stress reliev­er, rather than a sec­u­lar ver­sion of a Bud­dhist prac­tice. Ther­a­pists can also pro­vide grad­u­at­ed expe­ri­ences for patients, using time in the ther­a­py ses­sion to make sure patients feel com­fort­able with the prac­tices and that con­cerns are addressed.

The authors have both a firm grasp on mind­ful­ness and impor­tant insight into the ther­a­peu­tic process. Their book is full of clin­i­cal exam­ples as well as detailed direc­tions on how to use mind­ful­ness in dif­fer­ent ther­a­peu­tic sit­u­a­tions with dif­fer­ent kinds of patients. If you are a ther­a­pist inter­est­ed in incor­po­rat­ing mind­ful­ness into your own life or into the work you do with patients, I high­ly rec­om­mend this thor­ough, thought­ful book.

jill_suttie.thumbnail– Jill Sut­tie, Psy.D., is Greater Good‘s book review edi­tor and a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to the mag­a­zine. Greater Good is an online mag­a­zine based at UC-Berke­ley that high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tific research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altruism.

Read more:

  • Which kind of mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion to choose? Com­par­ing sit­ting med­i­ta­tion, body scan, and mind­ful yoga
  • Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-dam­ag­ing stress

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: acceptance, book, concentration, meditation, mindfulness, open monitoring, Psychotherapy, therapeutic

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 35,344 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.