By Rich Simon As therapists, many of us practice in two different worlds. In the first, we see polite, well-behaved, articulate clients with solid values. They engage fully in therapy, talk cogently about their problems, listen attentively to our responses, make reasonably good-faith efforts to follow our suggestions, and sooner or later get better. No wonder we genuinely like these people! 
By Rich Simon A thousand years ago, during the palmy days of generous insurance reimbursement, therapists could maintain the illusion that, since therapy was paid for by an unseen hidden hand, clinical practice was somehow untouched by the tacky subject of money. Even the style of therapy reflected this disjunction: 
CE Credits: 2 • Price: $29Thus, it seems astonishing that one of the fastest growing trends in therapy is the increasingly widespread use of meditation and mindfulness techniques—which, if they’re about anything, are about achieving a kind of inner and outer silence, encouraging a resonant, attentive, empathetic, and calming quiet within and outside of sessions. In this Reading Course you learn about the science, theory, and practice of meditation in therapy and its particular power in strengthening the client-therapist relationship. Jerome Front explores the neuroscience of meditation and how it can close the old gap between body and mind, self and others—a process that’s the foundation of psychotherapy. Molly Layton shows us how mindfulness can reveal the unspoken complexities of a couple’s relationship. David Treadway describes the paradoxical “lessons” of meditation for a therapist at a crisis point in his own life. Zindel Segal discusses the surprising power of mindfulness as a clinical adjunct in the treatment of depression.
Course Readings
A Quiet Revolution: Therapists Are Learning A New Way to Be with Their Clients by Jerome Front
The Soul of Relationship: Where Self and Other Meet by Molly Layton
Any Day Above Ground: After Recovery, What Then? by David Treadway
Finding Daylight: Mindful Recovery From Depression by Zindel Segal
Learning Objectives
1. Define the “body scan” and “whole body listening.”
2. Describe how teaching a couple to slow down and listen can have a transformative effect on their relationship.
3. Discuss the positive effects of mindfulness in therapy.
4. Develop an effective intervention using mindfulness to help a client dealing with grief.
© 2013 Psychotherapy Networker