Assignment Task:
Respond to two colleagues:
Compare the studies you and your colleague identified and the experiences you presented from your mindful practice exercise. Analyze one strength and one limitation of using mindfulness interventions for the client. Consider how culturally relevant it is, how aligned it is with social work ethics, etc.
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Describe your experience practicing this technique and how this experience influences your choice on whether to use it with a client during practice.
Being a Military Wife, Mom of 4, full time employee, student & being at the end of my first internship, I have found that practicing Mindful Meditation is a must. I have added this to my self-care routine. Even on my busiest days, I find 5 minutes minimum and just sit, close my eyes and breathe. Sometimes this is in the car sitting in the driveway at the end of the day (this helps after a stressful day to leave the work stress outside of the home) and sometimes it is sitting at my desk on my lunch break just to refocus and prepare for the rest of my day. Sometimes I have to do this multiple times a day especially when my anxiety is high. This serves as a chance for me to ground myself. When my anxiety is really high, and I can feel an anxiety attack coming on I use a method my therapist called 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding. I focus on 5 things I can see, 4 things I can hear, 3 things I can feel, 2 things I can smell and 1 thing I can taste. This helps recenter my thoughts and body to ground me in the here and now.
I would completely recommend this Mindfulness Meditation to a client as a way to recenter themselves after an emotional or stressful situation or day. This gives people a chance to get their feelings, breathing and body under control and to mentally shake off the day or situation.
I feel some clients may find this method frustrating at first as when you first try, it can be hard to clear your mind and just be. When I first tired, I grew frustrated because I felt my mind was going a million miles an hour and wouldn't shut off. As with every exercise, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I would recommend that clients that find it hard at first continue to try to see if it becomes easier.
This link is a wonderful study I found in regards to the case study I have been using.
Fernández-Portero, C., Alarcón, D., Gallardo-Flores, A., Amián, J. G., & Sánchez-Medina, J. A. (2021). Effectiveness of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention Program for women family caregivers of older adults. Healthcare, 9(9), 1216.
In 1-2 sentences, briefly summarize the methodological context (i.e., research method, how data was collected, and the instruments used) of the studies and the findings.
In the study, 111 women aged 33-75 who were care givers of older adults were analyzed. Half were given mindful meditation practices, and the others were given physical exercise as a coping mechanism for stress. The women given the coping mechanism of mindful meditation, showed a significant decrease in health problems over the ones given physical exercise.
Analyze the findings in terms of their validity and applicability for the client.
The client in my case study could benefit from mindful meditation because she is overwhelmed. Taking 5 minutes a day to just relax her brain could help calm her and help her feel better.
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The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Interventions
Undoubtedly, the mindfulness meditation practiced through the UCLA Health guided recordings was a positive experience for me overall. I liked the practices of body scan and breath awareness as they were quite soothing and made me feel more grounded (UCLA Health, 2024). On the other hand, I observed that I was not fully present at certain moments, which might be irritating for some clients who are new to mindfulness exercises.
In relating my reaction to how a client might react, I believe that there is a chance that, for some, the process of clearing the mind and maintaining focus may be frustrating. For instance, clients with anxiety could experience significant difficulty at first. Nonetheless, with proper training and assistance regarding how to regain focus, many clients would probably acquire advantages such as reduced stress levels and heightened self-consciousness at some point.
Below is the research focused on mindfulness interventions that I chose:
Garland, E. L., Hanley, A. W., Goldin, P. R., & Gross, J. J. (2017). Testing the mindfulness-to-meaning theory: Evidence for mindful positive emotion regulation from a reanalysis of longitudinal data. PLOS ONE, 12(12), e0187727.
This paper performed a secondary analysis of the data collected from a randomized controlled trial comparing MBSR with CBT for social anxiety disorder (N = 107). Garland et al. (2017) employed multivariate path analysis to capture the core constructs of the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory for 12 months.
The study's findings provided evidence for the hypothesized model by demonstrating that enhancement in attentional control was linked with subsequent enhancement in decentering, expanded consciousness, reappraisal competence and positive affect. Compared to CBT, MBSR led to significantly higher improvements in decentering and expansion of awareness (Garland et al., 2017). As for validity and generalizability, this was a longitudinal case-control study with a clinical sample, which indicates reasonable internal and external validity.
Contextually, the information on the psychological processes that underlie mindfulness could help in the development of interventions. In the case of the homeless single mother client, knowing how mindfulness may help improve coping processes and positive affect could be useful. Regardless, the study cannot be said to generalize her specific situation due to the fact that it focused on social anxiety only. In a nutshell, this study affords tentative support for mindfulness as an avenue to developing resilience and emotional capital in clients experiencing chronic stress.