The Art and Science of Mindfulness: Integrating Mindfulness Into the Helping Professions

Now in its third edition, The Art and Science of Mindfulness offers a deeper understanding of the concept of mindfulness and explores its potential as a core clinical skill and a way to increase the well-being of both clients and clinicians.

Mindfulness helps us to see clearly so that we can make choices grounded in reality and respond to life with wisdom. However, seeing clearly is difficult because the lens through which we view the world is blurred by our parents, teachers, relationships, and society, and they influence our perceptions on conscious and subconscious levels. Practicing mindfulness helps us remove the filters, biases, and preconceived ideas that shape our perceptions and cloud our consciousness. At the deepest level, mindfulness is about freedom: freedom from reflexive patterns, freedom from reactivity, and, ultimately, freedom from suffering.

This book navigates how mindful awareness is fundamental to the therapy process, and shows how mindful practice can help therapists and clients cultivate and connect with this deeper awareness. It also aims to present mindfulness as:

• an important dimension of clinical training with unique contributions toward fostering attention, empathy, presence, and awareness of our own biases and assumptions
• an empirically supported clinical intervention effective across a wide range of populations
• a means of fostering self-reflection and self-care for clinicians
• a way to expand the profession’s focus on pathology to include positive growth and development

New to this edition is a comprehensive overview of the evidence supporting the neurochemical basis of intention, attention, and attitude; a discussion of implicit bias and how it interferes with connecting mindfully with clients; a discussion of new mindfulness-based interventions and ways to apply mindfulness in therapy, and more.

Shauna L. Shapiro, PhD, is a professor at Santa Clara University, author, and internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and compassion. Dr. Shapiro has published over 150 journal articles and co-authored three critically acclaimed books translated into 14 languages, including her most recent book: Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness & Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire the Brain for Calm, Clarity and Joy. She has been an invited speaker for the King of Thailand, the Danish Government, Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Summit, the Canadian Government, and the World Council for Psychotherapy, as well as for Fortune 100 Companies including Google, Cisco Systems, Proctor & Gamble, and LinkedIn. The New York Times, BBC, Mashable, the Huffington Post, Wired, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal have all featured her work, and 1.5 million people have watched her TEDx talk The Power of Mindfulness. Visit her at https: //drshaunashapiro.com/

Linda E. Carlson, PhD, R. Psych, holds the Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology, is Full Professor in Psychosocial Oncology in the Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology. She is the Director of Research and works as a Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychosocial Resources at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre (TBCC), where she has worked since 1997. She also holds a CIHR SPOR-funded mentorship chair in innovative clinical trials, which funds the TRACTION program (Training in Research And Clinical Trials in Integrative Oncology), supporting a multidisciplinary group of University of Calgary fellows studying Integrative Oncology. She has published over 200 research papers and book chapters, holds several millions of dollars in grant funding and is regularly invited to present her work at international conferences, most recently in Netherlands, Switzerland, China, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Israel and all across Canada and the USA.

Broderick Sawyer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, diversity consultant, workshop facilitator, meditation teacher, reverend, and activist. He has a specific focus on healing the stress of oppression using the psychology of compassion. Dr. Sawyer offers diversity, mental health, and performance-based consultation to organizations and businesses, teaches mindfulness and compassion-based meditation, provides lectures, workshops, and a variety of customizable trainings. Visit him at www.BroderickSawyer.com