Mindfulness for Therapists (eBook)

Gerhard Zarbock is a clinical psychologist, certified CBT-, Schema- and DBT-therapist, a supervisor and trainer for CBT and schema therapy, and training director of a government approved CBT training institution (IVAH) in Hamburg, Germany. Siobhan Lynch is a psychologist based at the University of Southampton. She is a specialist in mindfulness in Higher Education with a focus on Technology Enhanced Learning. She developed a mindfulness training programme for university students (Mindfulness-Based Coping with University Life) during her PhD and delivers mindfulness training to the public. www.mindful-kiwi.com Axel Ammann is a clinical psychologist and certified cognitive behavioural therapist. He works for IVAH in Hamburg, Germany and also has a private practice, focusing on mindfulness-based psychotherapy. Silka Ringer is a clinical psychologist and a certified CBT-therapist for individual and group therapy with yoga-based mindfulness experience. She runs a psychotherapy practice near Leipzig, Germany.

Acknowledgments vii

1 Welcome 1

2 Mindfulness 9

3 Bringing Mindfulness Into Your Life 35

3.1 Week 1: Introduction to Mindfulness 35

3.2 Week 2: The Five Elements of Mindfulness 44

3.3 Week 3: Integrating Mindfulness into Everyday Life 51

3.4 Week 4: Mindfulness as a Way of Life 61

3.5 Week 5: Mindfulness as a Home Base for Therapists 69

3.6 Week 6: Mindfulness of the Body 79

3.7 Week 7: Integrating Mindfulness into Therapeutic Practice 92

3.8 Week 8: Review and Next Steps 98

3.9 Your Oasis 103

4 Extending Your Practice 109

4.1 Going Deeper 109

4.2 Exercises in Everyday Personal and Professional Lives 119

4.3 Mindfulness Exercises for the Helping Role 128

4.4 Mindful Moments With Your Clients 140

5 Short Manual for Running a Group Based on the Presented Material 145

6 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 171

Further Reading 178

About the Companion Website 181

Index 183

"Mindfulness in therapy is often understood as teaching
patients to be more mindful in order to better cope with disorders.
While this is reasonable in the context of healthcare, it does not
consider the role that mindfulness can play for therapists
themselves. On the one hand, teaching mindfulness to patients
should be based in a therapist's own mindfulness experience,
while on the other a growing number of studies show that therapists
can benefit personally and professionally from mindfulness classes.
This book is very helpful for developing mindfulness as a
therapist's 'home base'."--Prof.
Dr. Thomas Heidenreich, Hochschule Esslingen

"This is the first book supporting therapists in their
personal mindfulness practice. It introduces weekly exercises in a
systematic, detailed and well-structured way, with recordings to
support the novice. Drawing on experience, the authors describe
exactly what everybody can experience when starting to practice
mindfulness, and they take the reader by the hand so he or she
really feels accompanied."--Eckhard Roediger
(MD), Director of the Frankfurt Schema Therapy
Institute, President of the International Society of Schema
Therapy (ISST)