logo

dr-james-hawkins

  • icon-cloud
  • icon-facebook
  • icon-feed
  • icon-feed
  • icon-feed

Is interpersonal group work better than sitting meditation for training mindfulness?

I'm missing the seventh session of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course that I've been attending because I've come down to our annual four day UK Men's Group in Cumbria.  I've written about these peer groups many times on this blog - for example, last year's Men's Group and the year before's, as well as Mixed Groups here in Cumbria and just last month a Scottish Mixed Group too.  I woke this morning and wondered - as a kind of thought experiment - whether maybe this four day interpersonal group is, in some ways, a "better" way of training mindfulness than the more traditional practice of sitting in meditation. 

"Sleep well and live better: overcoming insomnia using CBT"- a workshop with Colin Espie (first post)

Yesterday I went to a one-day workshop with Professor Colin Espie on sleep disorders and CBT organized by the Scottish Branch of the BABCP.  Bike to the station, then a train from Edinburgh to Dundee.  Lovely, early morning light up the Fife coast.  Then a taxi to the conference venue where they were serving egg rolls, bacon rolls, and plenty of coffee for the gradually arriving delegates.

Psychotherapists & counsellors who don't monitor their outcomes are at risk of being both incompetent & potentially dangerous

I find the recent paper by Kraus & colleagues a bit scary - "Therapist effectiveness: Implications for accountability and patient care" - with its abstract reading "Significant therapist variability has been demonstrated in both psychotherapy outcomes and process (e.g., the working alliance). In an attempt to provide prevalence estimates of "effective" and "harmful" therapists, the outcomes of 6960 patients seen by 696 therapists in the context of naturalistic treatment were analyzed across multiple symptom and functioning domains. Therapists were defined based on whether their average client reliably improved, worsened, or neither improved nor worsened. Results varied by domain with the widespread pervasiveness of unclassifiable/ineffective and harmful therapists ranging from 33 to 65%.

Learning MBSR: fifth evening of the course - the value of "difficult" practice sessions & of "concentration"

Yesterday evening was the fifth session of the MBSR course that I'm attending.  I'd missed the fourth session because of my wife's birthday, but I did jot down some thoughts last week in the blog post "Learning MBSR: ... body scan, Damasio on identity, and informal practice".  There were seven of us attending tonight's session, so two were missing.  We began with a straight 45 minute sitting meditation - slightly "marines" when my usual practice is 20 minutes.  The experience of "swimming out" into a longer group practice echoes back for me to a series of meditation retreats I went to in my 20's.  Memories, not so much visual or verbal, more a sense in my body of poignancy, happiness, strength, youthfulness, openness.  Strange.