Passionate about presence – a reflection on the experience of being a person-centered therapist who teaches mainstream mindfulness

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis is a personal and experiential reflection on the connection between mainstream (secular) mindfulness and the person-centered approach (PCA). Both are best understood rather as ways of being, pointing to our natural capacity to live open to the flow of our moment-to-moment experience and to relate to self and other with compassion. In the same way that as a person-centered therapist I offer a space for another characterized by the core conditions, so mindfulness practice invites me to open to the life that’s here – and supports me in staying present, even and especially when it hurts. Reflecting on meditation practise, my experience as a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) teacher and as a mindfulness-based counsellor I explore the heartful-ness of the PCA and mindfulness. I refer to aspects of the more recently developed Mindful Self-Compassion programme, described as the cultivation of “loving connected presence” which I suggest mirrors the core conditions. Both approaches have been reduced and misrepresented as simply techniques. By contrast I invite you as you read to get curious about your own experience and include suggestions for short meditations throughout.