Impact of mindfulness training on attentional control and anger regulation processes for psychotherapists in training

Abstract

Further research is needed to replicate these findings, explore the effects of mindfulness training on other aspects of emotional regulation and cognition, and evaluate the impact of these effects within clinical situations.

Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on employees’ mental health: A systematic review

“…Another study had three treatment groups and a control group with no intervention [ 82 ]. The other 18 studies [ 7 , 9 , 53 , 73 , 75 , 76 , 78 – 81 , 83 – 85 , 87 – 89 , 91 , 92 ] had a ‘waiting-list control’ (i.e., they did not include an additional treatment intervention to control for factors such as trainer support, group support, and home practice).…”

“…The sample sizes in 11 studies [ 7 , 8 , 53 , 73 , 76 – 79 , 81 , 85 , 92 ] were relatively small: the group sizes (TG and CG) ranged from 10 to 24 participants. The most frequently studied research populations were healthcare professionals (12 studies) [ 7 , 53 , 73 , 76 , 77 , 79 – 81 , 84 , 86 , 90 , 91 ] (e.g., nurses, nurse aides, nursing leaders, physicians, social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists, physical therapists, psychiatrists) and teachers (five studies) [ 75 , 83 , 85 , 88 , 89 ]. Five studies [ 7 , 8 , 79 , 81 , 85 ] involved participants with the same occupation; four studies [ 83 , 85 , 88 , 89 ] investigated respondents from related occupations (i.e., elementary, secondary, or high school teachers).…”

“…Twenty of the 23 studies included more female than male participants; only Huang et al [ 87 ] reported more male participants, while the other two studies did not indicate the gender of the participants [ 53 , 84 ]. The mean age of participants was over 40 years in 15 studies [ 7 – 9 , 73 , 76 , 78 , 79 , 81 , 82 , 85 – 90 ], less than 40 years in four studies [ 80 , 83 , 91 , 92 ], and not stated in four studies [ 53 , 75 , 77 , 84 ]. Twenty studies were primarily quantitative, and only three contained a substantial amount of qualitative data [ 73 , 89 , 92 ].…”

Can clinical psychology students benefit from brief and intensive mindfulness training?

“…Executive control operates when there are several conflicting stimuli present at the same time that require prioritising between which are of importance and which are less important for the main goal at hand (DiGirolamo et al, ; van den Hurk et al, ). Previous findings on improved executive control after mindfulness training have been interpreted as indicative of decreased reactivity to external stimuli and inhibition of irrelevant elaborative processing that could help therapists stay on task without intrusive responses (Rodriguez Vega et al, ). Clinical situations are characterised by cognitive complexity, where the therapist has to relate to conflicting stimuli and prioritise among competing thoughts, feelings and responses.…”

“…In one study, mindfulness training was found to improve executive control in psychotherapists in training (Rodriguez Vega et al, 2014). The authors saw this as indicative of decreased reactivity to external stimuli and inhibition of irrelevant elaborative processing that could facilitate psychotherapeutic process-that is, helping therapists to slow down and refrain from disruptive responses (Rodriguez Vega et al, 2014). Another study comparing expert meditators and non-mediators found that expert meditators performed better on the subtask of Stroop measuring cognitive flexibility (Moore & Malinowski, 2009).…”