Self-care is necessary for psychotherapists to prevent burnout and to provide ethical services for clients. Counselling students often recognize the need for self-care, but neglect to implement it, preventing them from building the necessary practices to endure hardships related to practicing psychotherapy. Previous research, such as Butler and colleague’s work (2017), has examined the importance of self-care in counselling education, but has not examined how it is applied in practice. Therefore, this project’s research questions included: 1) How do novice therapists engage in professional self-care? 2) How do novice therapists bridge the gap between conceptual knowledge and practice of professional self-care? 3) What are the barriers to self-care? Thematic Analysis (TA) was used to distil meaning from common experiences of participants. Four psychotherapists with an average of 1.5 years of experience were interviewed using an in-depth semi-structured interview protocol. Eighteen subthemes were generated from the data, further categorized under four themes: (1) obstacles to self-care; (2) work-life balance; (3) pathways to self-care; and (4) effects of self-care. Implications of this research include structured self-reflection in counsellor training programs, integration of flexibility and self-care provisions in workplace cultures, and a strong policy emphasis on the need for counsellor self-care and improving professional guidelines to allow for counsellor self-care practices.

Vicarious traumatisation (VT) has been defined as an experience of change in several domains of personhood including worldview, identity, and beliefs related to major psychological needs. Self-care practice is widely considered essential in sustaining personal and professional well-being, and a lack of appropriate practice can enhance the risk of VT in trainee and newly qualified therapeutic practitioners. Both quantitative and qualitative research suggests that mindfulness practice can have a protective role in the risk of VT for trainees. This study examined the relationship between VT, self-care and mindfulness in a sample of 238 trainee therapists from the UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland. Structural equation modelling was used to test a mediation model with good fit with self-care as predictor variable, mindfulness as mediator, and VT as outcome variable. The hypothesis that when controlling for the effects of mindfulness on VT the effect of self-care on VT is no longer significant could not be confirmed as no mediational effect was present. The hypothesis that predicted a negative association between self-care practice and VT was confirmed with a significant total effect although the direct effect of self-care on VT was not significant. Findings are discussed in relation to previous research involving mindfulness in trainee cohorts. Links are made with neuroscience research to consider underlying mechanisms of mindfulness within the context of VT.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether and in what ways an intensive eight-week Mindfulness-Based Symptom Management (MBSM) program might shape the therapeutic experiences of therapists. I used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to interview and develop in-depth descriptions of four therapists’ experiences in relation to mindfulness and their therapeutic practices. The data collection consisted of: (1) a telephone screening interview; (2) pre-mindfulness training interview; (3) post-mindfulness training interview; (4) field notes based on my observations, subjective experiences, and beginning analyses; (5) and member-checks to verify the accuracy of my interpretations of participants’ interview responses. The results pointed to several common themes indicating the changes therapists described after participating in the mindfulness program. Themes denoting the reported changes were organized into three categories: (1) personal relationship with mindfulness; (2) relationship between mindfulness and therapeutic experiences; and (3) mindfulness-oriented interventions performed in therapy. The findings indicated that mindfulness training is associated with the enhancement of important relational attitudes and skills of therapists, including more acceptance of where clients are at, more presence in therapy, increased capacity to listen, openness and curiosity, and more compassion and empathy. In addition, mindfulness training may be linked to improved reflexive abilities, which has implications for more intentional and ethical decision-making in therapy. Further, the findings also indicated that mindfulness training may be linked to improvements in emotion regulation by decreasing stress, increasing feelings of relaxation and calmness, improving awareness of negative emotional and cognitive states as well as the ability to interrupt these negative cycles. As such, this study pointed to several potential benefits for the inclusion of mindfulness training in therapists’ self-care practices as well as in therapist education.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether and in what ways an intensive eight-week Mindfulness-Based Symptom Management (MBSM) program might shape the therapeutic experiences of therapists. I used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to interview and develop in-depth descriptions of four therapists’ experiences in relation to mindfulness and their therapeutic practices. The data collection consisted of: (1) a telephone screening interview; (2) pre-mindfulness training interview; (3) post-mindfulness training interview; (4) field notes based on my observations, subjective experiences, and beginning analyses; (5) and member-checks to verify the accuracy of my interpretations of participants’ interview responses. The results pointed to several common themes indicating the changes therapists described after participating in the mindfulness program. Themes denoting the reported changes were organized into three categories: (1) personal relationship with mindfulness; (2) relationship between mindfulness and therapeutic experiences; and (3) mindfulness-oriented interventions performed in therapy. The findings indicated that mindfulness training is associated with the enhancement of important relational attitudes and skills of therapists, including more acceptance of where clients are at, more presence in therapy, increased capacity to listen, openness and curiosity, and more compassion and empathy. In addition, mindfulness training may be linked to improved reflexive abilities, which has implications for more intentional and ethical decision-making in therapy. Further, the findings also indicated that mindfulness training may be linked to improvements in emotion regulation by decreasing stress, increasing feelings of relaxation and calmness, improving awareness of negative emotional and cognitive states as well as the ability to interrupt these negative cycles. As such, this study pointed to several potential benefits for the inclusion of mindfulness training in therapists’ self-care practices as well as in therapist education.