Mindfulness and Human Services

-by Megan Ferguson, Contributing Writer

“Mindfulness” is translated as “awareness” or “bare attention”. It is often used as a way to refer to being attentive in sensitive, accepting and independent of any thoughts that may be present. Therefore, as a psychological process, mindfulness is the action of being intentionally present and attentive toward internal and external stimuli occurring in momentary experiences. Since mindfulness requires individuals to monitor the focus of attention, a method of instruction is provided to achieve mindfulness.

1. First, practitioners place conscious, nonjudgmental attention on an object to focus such as breath, sight, sound or bodily sensations.
2. Second, when the practitioner notices that attention has drifted, they bring the client’s attention back to the stimuli in focus. Therefore, since mindfulness is a very thought out process, training clients in mindfulness practice includes training them to practice a technique grounded in philosophy that is oriented toward developing unique skills for daily life.

Mindfulness Methods

Mindfulness-based methods are both professionally and personally beneficial to practitioners and are efficient in helping clients cope with both physical and mental health issues. Practitioners are usually able to

• (a) distinguish between psychological processes related to mindfulness and other mental processes critical to clinical practice,
• (b) have knowledge of the various types and methods of medication and mindfulness,
• (c) have knowledge of which types of mindfulness methods are effective, ineffective and potentially harmful for use in treating specific mental health issues,
• (d) and practice each specific mindfulness technique before using that technique with clients.

Therefore, it is imperative that practitioners use both their personal and professional knowledge to use mindfulness-based techniques to ensure the relevancy of specific mindfulness practice. Practitioners should also be able to distinguish between mindfulness-related and other states of mind; however, additional research is still required to better understand and explore the mental health effects of different mindfulness methods.

Mindfulness-based practice is particularly important when helping clients overcome traumatic reactions or events. Individuals who have experienced trauma are understandably motivated to avoid thoughts, feelings and memories of their traumatic experience.

‘Mindfulness-based practice is particularly important when helping clients overcome traumatic reactions or events ‘

However, compassion is viewed as an extremely beneficial manner to help an individual redevelop and grow from their experience. Traumatic experiences that may include interpersonal oppression or prejudice, which often results in individualized or interpersonal alienation, can help individuals redevelop relationships with people. Mindfulness and compassion can also help the trauma victim develop problem solving and adaptation approaches in response to their traumatic experience to help them develop new learning out of the experience. The therapeutic relationship also helps the client to come to terms with their trauma-related memories, relational schema and conditioned emotional responses. Mindfulness and compassion also work on the cognitive level in helping the client with new information and experiences of unconditional caring, acceptance, mindful awareness and attunement to help the client update his or her assumptions and behaviors. Mindfulness and compassion becomes very client focused so that practitioners are effective in the techniques that they use.

If you would like additional information regarding Mindfulness, CEUnits.com offers four courses in Mindfulness:
• Treatment of Depression in Older Adults: Evidence-Based Practice
• Mindfulness in Psychotherapy
• Working with Trauma – Mindfulness and Compassion
• Mindfulness Competencies for Counselors and Psychotherapists
(information and statistics in the article are drawn from this course).