Introducing mindfulness and compassion‐based interventions to improve verbal creativity in students of clinical and health psychology

Abstract

ObjectivesIn the field of psychotherapy, verbal creativity has been suggested as an important aspect in psychotherapists’ training. In the present study, the effects of a mindfulness and compassion‐based intervention (MCBI) on verbal creativity are analysed in students of clinical and health psychology (N = 90).DesignStudents were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 37), in which an MCBI was applied, and a waiting list group (n = 26) with no intervention. We also assessed a non‐randomized active control group (n = 27), in which students received training in basic psychotherapy skills.MethodsVerbal creativity (fluency, flexibility, and originality) was evaluated in a pre‐, post‐, and follow‐up assessment.ResultsResults indicated a significant increase in fluency (p = .001, d = .64), flexibility (p = .017, d = .67), and originality (p = .004, d = .72) in the experimental group, relative to the waiting list group, in the post‐assessment. Fluency (p = .010, d = .64) and flexibility (p = .033, d = .62) were also found to be higher in the follow‐up assessment. In addition, results indicated a significant increase in flexibility (p = .034, d = .74) in the experimental group, relative to the active control group, in the follow‐up assessment.ConclusionsIntroducing MCBI in the university education of psychotherapists seems to be a useful strategy to improve their verbal creativity, which could positively influence their ability to explore and appropriately respond to their patients’ needs.Practitioner points Mindfulness and compassion‐based interventions (MCBIs) could be a useful strategy to improve verbal creativity in the university education of psychotherapists. After the MCBI, students of clinical and health psychology increased the number of ideas they produced when facing a specific situation, as well as their variety and originality.

A multicenter feasibility study on implementing a brief mindful breathing exercise into regular university courses

“…By implementing stress reduction interventions, such as mindfulness-based interventions, multiple attempts have been made to improve students’ stress coping, reduce their stress, and prevent, or at least diminish, the negative impacts of their increased stress load (for reviews and meta-analyses see 9 , 18 , 29 – 31 ). After practicing mindfulness between three and 12 weeks, students showed a reduction in depression symptoms 30 and stress 18 , as well as higher verbal creativity 32 . Improvements in a word retrieval task could be shown even after a single session of mindful breathing 33 .…”

Are Boys More Verbally Creative?

“…Some experts then agree that this verbal creativity shows how a person can develop writing skills, speech skills, negotiation skills, the ability to create a various atmosphere, language skills, the ability to influence others to determine whether he is worthy of a job or not. [13,14,15]. From these facts, we can conclude that verbal creativity is important and absolutely must be developed in adolescents.…”

Ethics and Meditation: A New Educational Combination to Boost Verbal Creativity and Sense of Responsibility

“…Indeed, the MBER program includes four kinds of meditation (given the nomenclature of Dahl et al 2020 ), among which are FA and OM (mindfulness training), which belong to awareness-based training. And, as reviewed in the introduction, both types of meditation have separately or jointly been shown to improve divergent and convergent thinking (reviewed by Lippelt et al 2014 ), as well as verbal creativity ( Bellosta-Batalla et al 2021 ). The amplitude of the effect that we measure is of the same order of magnitude as that obtained by comparing novice mindfulness practitioners with more advanced ones (with a cumulated practice of roughly 900 h to 2000–8000 h, respectively), whereas, in the same study, no significant effect is observed when these novice meditators are compared with a control group ( Berkovich-Ohana et al 2017 )—albeit the tools to assess divergent thinking are not the same as those that we used.…”

“…Indeed, FA meditation tends to promote convergent thinking, whereas OM meditation (such as Integrated Body Mind Training, Ding et al 2014) would rather favor divergent thinking (reviewed by Lippelt et al 2014). Also, (awareness/) mindfulness-based programs, which include both FA and OM training, could improve verbal creativity, as it has been shown with randomly and waiting-list-controlled trials (Bellosta-Batalla et al 2021). Moreover, divergent thinking is greater among mid-to long-term mindfulness practitioners than among novice ones, and this expertise is reflected in neural correlates that indicate weaker mind wandering (Berkovich-Ohana et al 2017)-an ordinary attentional state of consciousness that is expected to decrease with meditation training (Lutz et al 2008).…”