Common ground: The relational dimensions of mindfulness and psychotherapy.

Abstract

This article explores the importance of the relationship between a teacher of meditation and his or her student. Mindfulness meditation is receiving a lot of attention in the psychotherapy literature currently. It is generally viewed as a technique that is taught in groups and then practiced individually by clients or participants. What does not appear to be generally understood is that the teaching and learning of meditation is understood in Eastern traditions as intimately related to the relationship that develops between the teacher and student. This, in fact, is very similar to what we are coming to understand about the importance of the therapeutic relationship to the outcome of therapy, regardless of technique or orientation of the therapist. Personal experiences of the author in a relationship with a meditation teacher are compared with those from a psychoanalytic therapy experience. Meditation is construed from this perspective not only as a technique that is learned and practiced but also as an innate human capability that is activated in the context of a very special kind of relationship with a person who has fully unfolded this capacity in his or her own experience.

The confluence of authenticity and mindfulness: Principal component analysis of the Authenticity Scale and the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire.

“…Rogers (1961) expressed this as "a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of qualities, not a fixed quantity of traits" (p. 122). The congruent or authentic person interacts intensely and honestly with their experience, possessing curiosity, an ability to be a detached observer, and a tendency to accept things as they are (see Beitel et al, 2014;Cohen, 2014). Any cognitive attempt to hide feelings may cause incongruence and deeper emotional blindness (Sheldon, 2009).…”