Mindfulness in counseling and psychotherapy : a literature review and quantitative investigation of mindfulness competencies

Abstract

There is substantial interest in the application of mindfulness in counseling and psychotherapy. The appeal of mindfulness training and mindfulness-based interventions has increased as research continues to demonstrate benefits. Mindfulness practice has not only been effective in clinical applications with clients, but has also been conceptualized as beneficial for counselors and psychotherapists. Counselors are required to adhere to the ethical codes and standards of counseling related professional associations by practicing in a new specialty area only after appropriate education and training experience. With the desire to apply this new specialty area of counseling, educational opportunities are being offered by academic institutions, training programs and literature geared to counseling and psychotherapy professionals. Recommendations and qualifications can be found in the literature for specific mindfulness training programs and therapies, however, no set of competencies for mindfulness training have been proposed for the general or integrative practices of counseling and psychotherapy. The purpose of this dissertation study is to produce two manuscripts related to mindfulness in counseling and psychotherapy, and importantly, explore what it means to be competent to provide mindfulness training to clients. The dissertation investigated to what extent experts (N=52) agreed with a proposed set of 16 mindfulness competency statements. The mindfulness competency survey was investigated for reliability and validity. In conjunction with recommendations in the professional literature on mindfulness trainer qualifications, this research suggests that experts on mindfulness in counseling and psychotherapy, in general, agree with the 16 proposed competency statements.