Silence and Space
The Healing Power of Mindfulness in the Psychotherapy Session
This webinar was recorded and is now available as a Talk on Demand. Click here for more details.
Friday 18 June 2021
A Live Webinar with Eugene Ellis, Siobhán McGee and Dr Maria Pozzi Monzo
- Includes a recording of the event with access for a year (14 days post the event)
- Bookings close at 9.00am BST Tuesday 15 June
Mindfulness is simply the deliberate practice of paying attention to what one is feeling and thinking from moment to moment. Usually, the process involves observing the incoming and outgoing breath, noticing and releasing the thoughts and emotions that inevitably arise. As patterns of intrusive thoughts become clearer to identify, they reveal underlying anxieties and make these more manageable.
READ MORE...By repeatedly returning attention to the patterns of breath and the sensations surrounding these, the mindful practitioner is also reconnected to the body. This, in itself, has a calming and affect-regulating effect.
Reflecting the growing body of scientific knowledge about its effect on the nervous system, mindfulness has understandably become one of the most researched areas in psychotherapy. In fact, it is recommended in the NICE guidelines as a treatment for depression. In this webinar we have invited three therapists from different modalities to talk about their long-term use of his practice in their work. The presentations will reflect its effectiveness as a container, as means of transforming feelings and increasing agency.
FULL PROGRAMME
10:00 BST (05.00 EDT)
Introductions, and a guided meditation with Dr Maria Pozzi Monzo
10.20
Siobhán McGee
The power of presence and embodied relational mindfulness
‘Healing occurs in emptiness. Healing occurs in silence… Healing is a wholeness as opposed to an outcome’ Maura Sills (2001)
Contemplative practice is at the heart of most spiritual and healing traditions. If presence is inherently healing, then how is mindfulness a bridge to depth awareness and transformation in the psychotherapeutic process? In this session, Siobhán will discuss the practice of Core Process Psychotherapy and mindfulness as a way of being for the therapist rather than a technique. This session will invite an enquiry into therapy as a subtle and interconnected process of ‘embodied relational mindfulness’ (Sills, M. 2009) in which we co-create an alchemical container for awareness, compassion and transformation to emerge.
11:10
Q&A
11:25
Break
11:45
Dr Maria Pozzi Monzo
From the cot to the grave: psychotherapy and mindfulness in working with all ages
Having practiced as a child, family, and adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist for many years, as well as a Buddhist meditator, Maria reached a time when both disciplines needed to be united in her practice. Here she will reflect on the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy that is aided by mindfulness, how this can be used as an intervention for distressed families with infants, and how a mindful approach to oneself and one’s patient can both raise awareness within and beyond the session.
12.30
Q&A
12.45
Break
13.30
Eugene Ellis
The race conversation: mindfulness, trauma and the body
What racial differences impose on our minds and bodies as individuals and collectively as a society, is complex. We often feel powerless and voiceless when working therapeutically with racial differences, which leads us to the questions: can we make a difference? Is it possible to emerge from the tight grip of race discomfort and move towards resourcing, body awareness, mindfulness, and healing? This talk explores the visceral experience of the race conversation, the hurt and distress that lives principally in the body that has us turn away and circumvent our ethical instincts, and an invitation to bring awareness of the non-verbal into our experience of race.
14.15
Q&A
14.30
Discussion and Q&A with all speakers
15.00
End