Psychotherapists Archives - Mindful Happiness

May 5, 2019 By Admin

Introducing Your Clients to Brief Meditations

Psychotherapists often ask about ways to introduce mindfulness and meditation to clients. There are other posts on this Blog that offer basic introductory information on both content and process. Here I will simply introduce you to four brief, basic meditations for clients suffering from anxiety and/or depression, along with pervasive cognitive “stuckness” on unhelpful thoughts and related emotions. Once our clients – and ourselves for that matter – get stuck on unhelpful cognitions and emotions from the past, we need to move to the present moment and be there in calmness and safety. Of course other interventions are required when psychosis, intoxication, or extreme emotional dysregulation occur; meditation is not the recommended response in these conditions. One of the best ways to introduce your clients to meditation is to simply allow a gentle focus on the breath, just as it is. Relaxation-focused manipulation of the deep breath, especially for client with untreated trauma and polyvagal complications, may lead to the opposite effect – stimulating anxiety. Once your client can focus gently on her/his breath and benefit from brief exposures, he/she may be ready for brief meditations.

Below I have noted four scripts for you to use or modify as needed. Follow the rule-of-third by introducing the meditation cognitively (explain it); then with your client’s due process permission, do the brief meditation (in the body); and, after five or less minutes stop and process the meditation cognitively (talk about it). Always allow your client to stop the meditations at any time if they desire to do so. Comfort and safety are key values of psychotherapy process and relationship. If you or your client have doubts about comfortably completing the meditations, your client may prefer to be phased into them. Do this minute-by-minute by breaking down the five minutes into shorter time periods. Complete one or two minutes (half the scripts) rather than the full five minutes. Since mindfulness and meditation have been proven in thousands of studies to be helpful in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and emotion regulation (trauma and addictions), the more comfortable your client feels, the more likely he/she will continue practicing. It is sometimes helpful to remind your client that if/when distraction occurs, that is the time to simply bring attention back to the task at hand. Return attention again.

Five-Minute Meditation for Opening Up the Flow of Energy – Sit, relax, and breathe calmly with your eyes open. If you are comfortable with your eyes closed, that is fine. If you like your eyes open, you may want to glance gently downward toward the floor about three feet in front of you. Do your best to hold your head in a relaxed and level position. Now loosen your jaw and notice. Practice releasing any tension that you may be carrying in your throat. Let it go very gently, and open up your throat. Now bring attention to the area of your heart center, and imagine a warm, glowing, gentle inner light there. Notice the feeling. Allow it to nurture you. To end simply be with your natural breath; after a few breaths, allow it to bring you to full attention. This meditation is over.
Five-Minute Meditation on Not Judging – Sit, relax, and breath naturally with your eyes opened or closed. Be as quiet inside as you can, and practice non-judging. Simply notice what comes into awareness for you, but without judging or evaluating it. Simply allow yourself to be with it. If your eyes are open, please close them if comfortable. Notice what comes into awareness BUT without judging or evaluating. If your eyes are closed, please open them; simply note what comes into your awareness BUT without judging or evaluating it. Be as quiet inside as possible – enjoy the silence if it is there. Count five breaths and end this meditation.
Five-Minute Meditation on Letting Go of Your Thoughts – Sit, relax, breathe calmly or naturally, and allow your eyes to remain opened or closed. Pay close attention to the thoughts (sometimes voices of others) in your head. If unhelpful thoughts arise, do your best not to react; instead simply notice without responding or reacting. Perhaps your thoughts are about people, places, things, images, body feeling, or personal experiences. As consciousness presents you with each item, one by one, simply notice and LET IT GO. Do your best NOT to get entangled with them; do not engage with your thoughts, or carry on conversations in your mind. Thoughts are just thoughts! As each one come into awareness, just practice non-judging and LET IT GO. Allow each thought to arise and fall – just LET IT GO! Yes, just let it go. Now complete a few in-out breaths, and end the meditation.
Five-Minute Self-Acceptance Meditation – Sit, relax, breath naturally and have your eyes opened or closed (it is up to you). As you sit simply allow thoughts, images, feelings to arise and fall; just notice them without engagement – LET EACH ONE GO. Be the “watcher.” Try not to get hooked by them. Now repeat this statement to yourself: “May I accept and love myself just as I am, with imperfections.” You may note this statement in your mind and be more specific be replacing “imperfections” with another word. Repeat this statement several times without distractions. Now rub your hands together until you feel heat. When your hands feel hot, gently place them on your face – covering your eyelids, cheeks, etc. Just sit there in your warmth and notice. Be the warmth. Feel free to rub your hands again and repeat the process. Count to five and end this meditation.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

March 23, 2017 By Admin

Even More Psychoanalytic Gems

Psychoanalytic Gems – Even More

D. W. Winnicott has made significant clinical contributions to both building therapeutic alliance and maintaining a positive, helpful focus in psychotherapy. Below I have noted various approaches to
use in your therapy. Use of these “gems” requires considerable knowledge and skill by the therapist. Here is the list:

Respect the client’s agency, and do nothing to exert direct control over her/him.
Continue to support personal goals, striving, and motivation in your client. Promote healthy maturational processes in this growth.
If you understand how, use transitional space/transitional objects in our therapy to enhance positive emotional holding and nurturing of the client’s true self. Build more safety.
Work to improve the client’s self-identifications, self-image, and self-objects. Where helpful note that initial introjections are the product of attachment experience. They occupy both intrapsychic and interpersonal space and time.
Introduce playful free association as a method in your therapy. Use interpretation only when it is helpful.
Support directly the client’s need for “continuity of being” in both therapy and day-to-day life experiences. This often includes integration of the true self and false self.
Use gentle reflection to help move insight into action: changes in thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Notice both transference and cuntertransference experiences in therapy. Use these to better understand your client, as well as yourself.
When possible enhance the client’s safe use of self soothing behaviors as a form of “primal satisfaction.”
Help your client to integrate fragments of unhelpful past experiences. This process should help to enhance the presence of a coherent self-narrative. Such narratives often involve early traumatic experiences, and may be activated in the here-and-now of therapy.
Do whatever is possible to re-integrate the sense of a secure self. Maintain a safe and accepting therapeutic environment to do so.

For more refer to Giovacchini, P. L. (1990). Tactics and Techniques in Psychoanalytic Therapy. Vol. 3, The Implications of Winnicott’s Contributions. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, pp.1- 243.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

January 30, 2017 By Admin

Impact of Suicide on Psychotherapists

How Suicide impacts Psychotherapists

One of the greatest fears of psychotherapists is that one of their clients will commit suicide. Here are some common reactions of psychotherapists when one of their clients commits suicide. In some ways these reactions are sequential, but no exact concrete sequence is well documented. Here is a list to consider.

There is a personal, traumatic reaction to the reality that a client has committed suicide. Sometimes a dissociative experience.
Immediate emotional reactions (sadness, grief, guilt, crying, even anger) are common.
Serious questions arise about the perceived quality of the therapeutic relationship, as well as clinical competence.
It is also common to worry habitually about the opinions of colleagues and supervisors regarding personal competence.
Another common issue is concern about professional risks – being sued, ethical consequences, liability insurance cost increases, possible legal fees, etc.
Residual guilt and shame lingers for quite a long time after the event. A common question is: What could I have done?????
The ultimate reality of human suffering and how some people would rather die than face another day of it awakens the mind.
Sometimes stigma remains regarding your role and your clinical skills.
Some psychotherapists require professional help, even medication, as a means of dealing with this emotional issue.
This reality – yes, it will happen to even the most skilled psychotherapists – stimulates interest in learning more and obtaining skilled supervision on high-risk clinical cases.

For more information refer to: …Impact of client suicides. (January, 2017). New England Psychologist, p. 3.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Equanimity, Suffering, and Resilience It is said that equanimity (Pali – upekkha), the seventh factor of enlightenment and the tenth perfection, is an end-product of life-long personal practice in meditation and/or meditative yoga. It is about “walking the walk.” Some practitioners note that equanimity is the foundation for other helpful states of mind and body. […]

The Reality of Experience What is deep mindfulness? Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked […]

Are You Happier Yet? Use Practical Mindfulness Skills Two recent books offer sound advice about YOU becoming a happier person. L. Cypers Kamen (2017) Are You Happy Yet: Eight Keys to Unlocking a Joyful Life. New York: MFJ Books and D. Altman (2016) Cleansing Emotional Clutter… New York: MFJ Books offer practical ways to improve your personal level of happiness. […]

The Failed “War on Drugs” – Let’s Try Treatment On Demand and Fund It The New York based Drug Policy Alliance (drugpolicy.org) and other sources have provided some important information about our failed drug and alcohol policies. Here are a few astounding facts. The United Stares has about 5% of the world’s population, but it […]

Many Benefits of Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation The Dalai Lama (Gyatso, Tenzin), the world leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and Paul Ekman, the world famous Psychologist of human emotions, have teamed up to discuss how to use mindful emotional awareness skills to become more emotionally balanced and compassionate. These two highly skilled practitioners have listed 21 […]

Spirit Wars and “Spiritual Warfare” This post will discuss the topic and personal strategies. Most content will relate to both physical realities and metaphorical meanings and categories. Since a person viewing their self as fighting a spiritual war most likely holds onto certain parts of self in this endeavor, it is highly unlikely that the […]

Meditation Process in Chan Buddhism Chan Master Changlu’s The Deportmant for Sitting Meditation (12th century China) is a clear and helpful set of instruction. 1) It begins with the making of a personal vow for great compassion, personal liberation, and samadhi – all for the purpose of delivering sentient beings from their suffering and to their […]

Tantric Meditation on Emptiness of Self Mind training on emptiness of self requires single-pointed attention and concentration on space, empty space. Emptiness awareness in equipoise of meditation appears as the empty of space. When we practice this repeatedly with calm abiding we can attain direct experience of non-conceptual realization – true emptiness. Awareness of emptiness […]

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness The Buddha taught about your four best friends, that is how the body changes physiology when you sit, stand, walk/move and every time you are lying down. Modern Western neuroscience now supports this statement of 2500+ years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh added the importance of your breath, walking meditation, […]

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Forgiveness Meditation Practice – Mindful Happiness – Dr Anthony Quintiliani Sit comfortably in a meditation posture. Allow your breath to remain natural without any intentional modification. Allow your body to relax, and allow your mind to be open to and to expect forgiveness. Focus attention on your heart area deep within your soul, and allow […]

The Lotus Sutra and Meditatin Practice The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important and sacred of Buddhist sutras. It is often considered a summary of The Buddha’s teaching, presented many years after he began to teach and share his experiences. The version considered here is the Kumarajiva translation, as translated by B. Watson; it […]

Henry David Thoreau & Walking Meditation Henry David Thoreau is, perhaps, the most individualistic of the American Transcendentalists. He asked us to consider what we have learned that is useful as we travel our own “stream of life.” He cautions us not to regret when we die that we “had not lived.” He advised us to […]

Gurdjieff’s The Fourth Way Meditations: A way of Being and Knowing Although Gurdjieff developed a whole way of being and knowing, including attentional practices, dance/body movements, group processes, and meditations here I will focus only on some of the suggested meditations. In particular, I include the meditations noted by his primary student (J. DeSalzmann, 2011). […]

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view. In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

Liberation of the True Self Socrates is reported to have noted that “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new.” In Buddhism there are clear relationships between “no-self” and the force of impermanence, that reality that ensures constant change and thus personal […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

Advanced Meditations – Middle Way -Wisdom Path Between Extremes These meditation practices are advanced, and combine complex ideas from Nagarjuna (Indian Master), T’ong-Kha-Pa (Tibetan Master), and The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso). In keeping with the mixed secular nature of my meditation center, I have decided to present these complex ideas with several of my […]