Mindfulness offers a set of simple, powerful tools that can help heal past traumas and break cycles of depression, anxiety, addiction, and emotional dysregulation. In this seminar, you'll practice real world applications of mindfulness that can open new doors for your clients. Discover how to harness the power of neuroplasticity through mindfulness practices (included meditation and non-meditation skills), direct growth in mindfulness and self-regulation skills with children and adults of all ages, and guide efforts in moment-to-moment resilience and non-reactivity. In addition to discussing mindfulness applications for numerous diagnoses, we will explore effective mindfulness-based solutions for many common scenarios, including school failure, delinquency, poor ability to keep jobs, unstable relationships, and many more.

Course Content

THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF MINDFULNESS

• Our brains are social by nature
• The foundation is set during the first year of life
• “Relational trauma” according to Schore
• The limbic system
• Frontal lobe development
• The “Executive” control center
• Neurotransmitters
• DNA telomeres

iNVESTIGATING THE SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESS

• Evolution of the cortex and survival
• Fear and anxiety resolved through relationships including spiritual
• Intimacy and the mirror neurons
• The development of attunement
• Intimacy skills:
  • Self-awareness
  • Empathy
  • Communication of emotions
  • Conflict resolution
  • Sustaining commitment
• The neurobiology of mindfulness meditation
• Emotional benefits of mindfulness

mINDFULNESS AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION

• The evolutionary function of fear and anxiety
• Fast and slow circuits
• Fears and anxieties
• Stress and hippocampal damage
• Regulating fear

eLICITING The Relaxation Response:  Research of Herbert Benson

• Eastern meditation and visualization
• Gains through Benson’s method
• Genes expressed differently
  • Anxiety and depression
  • Cancer
  • Heart disease
  • The relaxation response also elicited by:
    • Physical exercise
    • Music
    • Repetitive prayers
• Benson’s eight-step program for eliciting the relaxation response

Mindfulness in Mental Health Treatment

• Mechanisms of action
  • Focusing on the present
  • Definition of Shapiro and Kubat-Zinn –self-regulation and self-management
  • Re-perceiving non-judgmentally
• Eight themes of Teasdale, Williams, and Segal
• Rogers' mindfulness exercise
• Mindfulness, spirituality, and cultural competence
• The therapist's mindfulness attitudes:
  • Self-compassion and attunement
  • Empathy and attunement with others
  • Emotional regulation

 Eastern and Western Meditation

• History of Eastern and Western meditation
• The "Desert Fathers"
• Evolution of meditation and contemplation
• Neuroscience of meditation and contemplation
• Maslow's self-actualizing characteristics and meditation
• Attachment theory, meditation and self-actualization
• Newberg's research on the "Centering Prayer" of Keating

Mindfulness training and interventions for

• Children and adolescents
• Emotional regulation disorders
• Chronic depression
• Anxiety disorders
• Addiction treatment

Case Study

• Mindfulness practices help penitentiary inmate form an intimate relationship and develop responsible parenting skills