D.R.I.V.E-ing Awareness

Session Overview:

Mindfulness has been a spiritual or religious practice for more than 2500 years, and is now considered among the core therapeutic conditions of counseling, as well as a specialized facet of many prominent therapies (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Linehan, 1993; Hayes et al., 1999). With modern ways to study the mechanism and impact of mindfulness practice, there are multitudes of applications for a variety of presenting concerns and diagnoses, but also for engaging in culturally competent and inclusive practices with diverse, even minoritized, populations. This presentation will include a brief overview of mindfulness, applications of mindfulness practices with a focus on diversity and inclusion, and an experiential activity, being that clinical applications of mindfulness may have positive impacts on engaging in transcultural counseling, processing the experiences of belonging to a group that is minoritized by society, and increase cognitive flexibility and reflectivity when addressing matters of diversity and inclusion.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will learn the basic background, evidence, and rationale of mindfulness practice and awareness of how mindful practitioners who engage in their own self-compassion and body awareness may encourage more honest reflections and conversations with diverse clients
2. Participants will be prepared to utilize mindfulness practices to engage in active and courageous conversations with clients from diverse or minoritized identities to gain greater cultural competence
3. Attendees will have a specific mindfulness exercise(s) to adapt and utilize outside of the presentation to facilitate inclusive mindfulness practices