15 Must-Have Mindfulness Techniques for Clinicians

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Debra Premashakti Alvis, PhD Related seminars and products

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Debra Premashakti Alvis, PhD, a licensed psychologist, developed the Mind/Body Program at the University of Georgia, providing clinician training on the integration of mindfulness and contemplative practices into psychotherapy. Her work as a professor at the University of Georgia included the supervision of doctoral students and co-leading a research team investigating mindfulness.

In addition to teaching, Dr. Alvis maintains a private practice and has more than 25 years of clinical experience in treating clients with a variety of conditions by mindfulness principles, body-oriented principles and traditional psychotherapeutic approaches. She also has an over 30-year personal contemplative practice.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Debra Alvis maintains a private practice and receives a speaking honorarium from Asadis Training, Essential Therapy Training, Georgia Museum of Art, Bascom Museum of Art, and Mountain Area Health Education Center. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Debra Alvis is a member of the American Association of College Student Personnel, the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, the Association of Specialists in Group Work, the Athens Area Psychological Association, and the Georgia Psychological Association.

Objectives

1. Assess neurological processes and how mindfulness can be used to increase client’s motivation.
2. Determine how mindfulness practices can be used to shift clients to a relaxation response.
3. Integrate mindfulness interventions into your treatment plans to counter automatic patterns of negative thoughts.
4. Demonstrate how mindfulness and breathing techniques can be practised in-session to increase emotion regulation.
5. Analyze the neurobiology of the traumatized brain and implement grounding techniques and breathing exercises.
6. Appraise the clinical utility of mindfulness-based therapies in regulating shame and guilt.

Outline

• Educate the client about the impact of stress
• Practice makes perfect – transform the stress response
• Exercises:
  • Strengthen awareness of the stress response
  • Shifting to relaxation response: cultivate a foundation of groundedness, settledness, and ease
  • Mindful transitions
• Treatment limitations, risks and research

• The downward spiral and the brain’s default mode
• Cultivate motivation and action
• Witness the anxious mind
• Get unstuck from anxious rumination
• Exercise:
  • Self-regulation practices for anxiety

• Understand the sources of anger
• The body’s anger response
• Identify early signs of the anger forest fire
• Clarify the practice: What am I trying to remember?
• Exercise:
  • Rehearsal of the Stop-Breathe-Reflect-Choose practice

• Proceed with caution – avoid retriggering and retraumatizing
• Retrain the dysregulated nervous system
• Cultivate safety
• Exercises:
  • Grounding techniques
  • Breathing techniques
  • Positive visualization

• Identifying primary core negative belief
• Cultivating a healthy and true vision of self
• Exercises:
  • The protective quality of mantras
  • Exercises that promote self-forgiveness

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Occupational Therapists
• Addiction Counselors
• Case Managers
• Therapists
• Nurses
• Physicians
• Other Mental Health Professionals