Mindfulness: From Awareness to Action: How Mindfulness Transforms Therapy
From Awareness to Action: How Mindfulness Transforms Therapy
Over time, people are discovering mindfulness practice in various contexts and settings, yet it is within therapy that people often delve most deeply into its practice. A key component of dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), mindfulness is also being used in conjunction with several other therapy methodologies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure and response prevention (ERP). The benefits of mindfulness practice can include improved stress management, anxiety, self-awareness, emotional regulation, resiliency, focus, and attention. In addition to the benefits that can be found from consistent, individual mindfulness practice, mindfulness can also enhance the process and outcomes of psychotherapy in unique ways, regardless of the modality.
Building Awareness of Thoughts, Feelings, and Sensations
Psychotherapy often involves learning to recognize and experience one’s emotions and related thoughts or beliefs, and noticing how the body responds. Mindfulness serves as a powerful vehicle for building awareness of thoughts, feelings, and the body by learning to pay attention to one’s inner world. Through mindfulness practices such as meditation and mindful breathing, individuals learn to observe their thoughts and emotions without judgment or attachment, offering a pathway to profound self-discovery and inner growth. Developing more awareness of these experiences within oneself can help to better understand the connections between thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Making these connections then allows folks to work with their therapist to start recognizing patterns that might be impacting their mental health.
Slows You Down Enough to Make a Change
One of the biggest challenges in working towards growth and change is that our thoughts, reactions, and behaviors often feel automatic, with little time or space to choose a different path. In therapy, individuals often comment that they can see a different perspective or a different course of action available to them in retrospect, but in the moment they just reacted. The practice of mindfulness can help people learn to slow down, acknowledge how they are thinking and feeling in the moment, and make a choice about how to proceed. Learning to set aside the pain from past mistakes and worry about the future not only feels less overwhelming, but also allows space to respond to the present. Slowing down and finding the space to pause provides the opportunity to apply the coping skills learned in therapy. In this way, mindfulness can help with anxiety, anger, and interpersonal interactions.
Finding Space Between You and Your Experience
People often seek therapy because they experience their thoughts and feelings as intrusive or overwhelming. Mindfulness can help to shift one’s perspective on thoughts and emotions, noticing them as just a piece of one’s experience in a given moment rather than as all-encompassing. This shift helps to decrease overidentification with thoughts and feelings. The difference between “I am depressed” or “I am terrible” to “I am feeling depressed”/”I am having the thought that I am terrible” can be significant. Working in therapy to harness this space between the self and thoughts/feelings/sensations can free up room for other elements of identity to take precedence.
Mindfulness is often practiced in the room during therapy sessions to demonstrate elements of practice and at times to center the client for the therapeutic process. From there, mindfulness practice is often assigned to be integrated into one’s everyday routine on a regular basis. Working past obstacles to practice and trying out different mindfulness techniques can also be helpful during therapy sessions. If these benefits sound helpful, it might be worth seeking out a mindfulness-informed therapist.
This article was written by Rachel Kirkman. Learn more about her by clicking the link below.
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