MINDFUL AWARENESS, MINDSIGHT, AND NEURAL INTEGRATION

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in The Humanistic Psychologist and is available as an open access article. ABSTRACT Mindful awareness has been demonstrated to alter brain function, mental activity, and interpersonal relationships toward well-being. This article hypothesizes that mindful awareness promotes these positive changes through a proposed internal attunement that catalyzes the fundamental process of integration. Integration¿the linkage of differentiated elements of a system¿ leads to the flexible, adaptive, and coherent flow of energy and information in the brain, the mind, and relationships. This coherent flow enables the individual to attain an intentionally established state of mindfulness with practice in the moment and creates the experiential substrate for developing mindful traits in daily life. By freeing the individual from the top¿down associations of memory, mindfulness also promotes an emergent sense of a vital and resilient self. This course on mindful awareness as a clinical intervention is designed for clinical and professional counselors, social workers, psychologists, nurses, and other mental health professionals who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for beginning, intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their understanding of this clinical intervention. The course material includes a review of neural functions. This course is particularly suited to licensed clinicians who require clinical continuing education courses for license renewal. Authors: Siegel Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding the intervention of mindful awareness and mindsight. Specifically, a professional will: Describe positive changes that can be promoted through mindful awareness. Identify the importance and outcomes of neural integration. Identify outcomes that may occur from mindfulness in clients. Citation: Seigel, D.J. Mindful awareness, mindsight, and neural integration. The Humanistic Psychologist, 37, 137-158.