Contemplative practices in counseling: the impact of loving-kindness meditation on the therapeutic alliance

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Abstract

this article examines the use of contemplative practices by counselors to enhance nonspecific therapeutic factors. Although mindfulness-based interventions have been extensively studied, a large portion of contemplative practices remain understudied, especially in the context of their impact on the effectiveness of counseling practice. We present the results of a study that evaluated the effects of loving kindness meditation performed by counselors prior to a counseling session on alliance quality and session effectiveness. The sample included 12 counselor-client dyads and 44 sessions, half of which counselors prepared for with meditation. While in the past the use of meditation to prepare for sessions has been studied on trainee counselors, our experiment involved practitioners with 3 years or more of experience. For the first time, loving kindness meditation (“metta”) was studied as a pre-session exercise. Therapeutic alliance was higher in sessions for which counselors prepared for by doing a short meditation practice. The counselors also noted that that they experienced more enjoyment and less effort and emptiness in the sessions before which they meditated. Thus, meditation can be seen as an effective tool for improving the quality of psychological counseling by enhancing key nonspecific factors of the therapeutic process.

About the authors

R. R Yarmolyuk

University of Tyumen

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