Mindfulness-Based Practices
Mindfulness is secularly defined as “paying attention, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgement” by the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn. Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn first introduced mindfulness to the medical field as a method to ease suffering from chronic pain and complex medical conditions by alleviating physical and emotional distress. Since then, mindfulness has been widely used and integrated in psychotherapy for its therapeutic benefits.
In psychotherapy, we define this therapeutic mindfulness as “awareness of the present moment. with loving acceptance”, as proposed by Dr Ronald D. Siegal, one of the co-authors of Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. Practising mindfulness could help people cultivate an intimate, loving, accepting, non-avoidant, non-reactive relationship with their inner experiences, especially the negative ones. It can help people conceptualise what is happening clearly, without distortion. This enhances self-awareness and complements traditional psychotherapy which primarily focuses on exploring “why”. Only when you can see reality clearly, can you understand the reasons behind it more accurately and then take steps toward bettering your quality of life. Therefore, mindfulness can help us in the following ways-
- To see and accept things as they are
- To loosen our preoccupation with the old story of self (usually the negatively biased ones)
- To experience the richness of life
- To regain the freedom to respond to situations (especially the difficult ones) wisely
The application of mindfulness in psychotherapy ranges from implicit to explicit ways:
The implicit role of mindfulness: practising therapist
The explicit role of mindfulness: mindfulness-based psychotherapy
Mindfulness-based psychotherapy teaches mindfulness to clients explicitly as a form of skill training. Clients will be taught how to practice mindfulness in a systematic way (both formal meditation practises and informal applications in daily life) and are expected to commit to daily regular mindfulness practice during and after the treatment. Such therapy approaches rely heavily on the practice of mindfulness itself to gain experiential insight, enhance self-awareness, and facilitate therapeutic change.
Some examples of mindfulness-based psychotherapy are:
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
- Mindful Self-Compassion
If you would like to cultivate an attitude of loving acceptance to your experiences and yourself and are also interested in incorporating mindfulness meditation as part of your life, you may request to see the therapist in our team who are trained in therapy models as listed above.
Somewhere in between: mindfulness-informed psychotherapy
Mindfulness-informed psychotherapy draws insight from mindfulness practice but does not emphasise on practising mindfulness meditation per se. Such therapy approaches take the philosophy of mindfulness to understand the nature of human psychological suffering, to inform the model of psychopathology, and may only use certain brief mindfulness practises or mindfulness-informed techniques as intervention tools to alleviate emotional distress.
Some examples of mindfulness-informed psychotherapy are:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
- Mindfulness-informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
If you would like to cultivate an attitude of loving acceptance to your experiences and yourself but are not really a “meditation” person, you may look for a therapist who is trained in therapy models as listed above.
If you would like to cultivate an attitude of loving acceptance to your experiences and yourself and are also interested in incorporating mindfulness meditation as part of your life, you may request to see the therapist in our team who are trained in therapy models as listed above.
