Mindfulness Practice:
Therapy for Client and Therapist
Why spend a single moment doing what appears to be nothing? Because that time is essential to mindfulness. It has the extraordinary power not only to help us connect with and heal ourselves but to do the same with others. It offers an avenue for functioning more purposefully. The same 24 hours will still be there, but how we move through them may become vastly different.
The time invested in sitting quietly with eyes closed, body relaxed, breathing deeply and listening to our own rhythms is known as mindfulness practice and it has its roots in Eastern spirituality. It is how Jerome Front, a nationally-known leader in the field of clinical psychology and family therapy, began a workshop at Western Michigan University’s Fetzer Center in Kalamazoo in early April. More than 120 professionals in counseling and social work gathered to learn how this practice could help them and their clients.
Mindfulness practice allows us to experience the world much more intimately and meaningfully. Front has studied in various parts of the world with some of the pioneers in mindfulness and meditation, among them Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Daniel Siegel, and Saki Santrelli. Front’s visit to Kalamazoo was sponsored in part by a generous gift from retired Family & Children Services clinician George Opdyke and a member of the Family & Children Services Board of Directors, Earlie Washington. Washington is Interim Dean of the College of Health and Human Services at WMU.
Between sessions of leading his audience in mindfulness practice, Front posed questions to stir self study, often leading to “a-ha” moments. “What is it,” he asked, “that you do when there is no client in the room? Is the client with you in your thoughts?” Front said that the field of neuroscience states that an image of the person remains inside us in our mental and physical reactions to them. The more mindful of them we become, the better able we are to be of help. However, taking care of ourselves through mindfulness practice also means that there are times when we clear our minds so that we are refreshed. It is a matter of balance.
“Western education has left us bereft in recognizing our bodies as a form of communication and wisdom,” he explained. “Our body is a source of knowing, not as Victorian training would have it, a source of desire and sin.” The mind and body are intimately linked and in fact, the feeling center of the brain is connected both to the heart and the gut by transmission pathways.
Western culture rewards us on the basis of “doing” rather than “being”, said Front. This pressure, in turn, feeds the phenomenon that is wreaking havoc in our culture. “We need grosser amounts of stimulation before we will give something even our partial attention,” he stated. “Meanwhile, silence is given a negative connotation as in giving someone ‘the silent treatment.’” What could become times of healing and connecting are denied.
Front went on to explain that sometimes we get into a “saturated state” when the anxiety we feel is in our minds and bodies at the same time and we are not able to think we can do anything about it. Health problems are one very direct outcome of this, as are fractured relationships.
In his own work in psychotherapy, Front maintains a private counseling practice, teaches at the Graduate School of Clinical Psychology at Pepperdine University, and conducts experiential training for therapists. He emphasized to his attentive audience that, “The ability to be mindful and in the moment and to truly feel both with our minds and our bodies, allows us to become better therapists because we are more empathic.” Smiling, he said, “The same neurons that light up in the brain during mindfulness practice light up as part of a healthy loving relationship.”
For more information about Mindfulness Practice and Jerome Front, visit his website at www.jeromefront.com. He can be reached directly at frontmail@earthlink.net.
