I have talked about mindfulness in the past several blog posts. Hopefully, those posts have been a helpful starting point for those who are interested in how the concept of mindfulness can be useful in our lives. In addition, I have mentioned how mindfulness can be a tool for mental health professionals to use in the practice of therapy. In this blog, I would like to briefly talk about how mental health professionals use mindfulness in their work.
In my previous blog (9/30), I reference the book, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. In this book, the authors do an excellent job of pulling together different ways a therapist might use mindfulness in their clinical work and point to three ways a therapist may integrate mindfulness into their practice.
Personal practice
By simply having a formal or informal mindfulness practice, a therapist is able to bring more presence to the therapeutic relationship.
Mindfulness as a framework to therapy
A therapist may have a mindfulness practice that, coupled with current research on mindfulness, informs the way that the therapist understands the practice of psychotherapy. Here, a therapist may be influenced by mindfulness in their work, but will not necessarily teach mindfulness techniques to clients.
Mindfulness-based therapy
In this example, a therapist may use explicit mindfulness skills and trainings to assist in their work with a client.
In my next blog I will talk about how I have found mindfulness helpful in my work as a therapist.
Latest posts by Dr. Pittman McGehee (see all)
- Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Myla Kabat-Zinn (book recommendation) - July 28, 2010
- The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion by Christopher Germer (book recommendation) - June 2, 2010
- Mindfulness and Psychotherapy by Germer, Siegel and Fulton (book recommendation) - June 2, 2010