Mini Workshop 18 - Inner Resources for Stress: Essential Skills for Using Mindfulness and Meditation for Stress and Trauma
Sunday, November 20, 2022
8:00 AM – 9:30 AM EST
Location: Olmstead, 7th Floor
Earn 1.5 CE Credit
Keywords: Mindfulness, CBT, Disaster Mental Health Recommended Readings: Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 163–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.01.005 Waelde, L. C. (2022). Mindfulness and meditation in trauma treatment: The Inner Resources for Stress program. The Guilford Press. Waelde, L. C., Hechanova, M. R. M., Ramos, P. A. P., Macia, K. S., & Moschetto, J. M. (2018). Mindfulness and mantra training for disaster mental health workers in the Philippines. Mindfulness, 9, 1181-1190. https://doi.org/10.1007/S12671-017-0855-2
Professor Emeritus Palo Alto University Mountain View, California
Mindfulness and meditation (MM) techniques and interventions are often used as needed in-session to respond to client distress with little reliance on integration with client conceptualization and treatment planning to optimize their use (Waelde et al., 2016). As an alternative to ad hoc uses of MM, therapists can use a trauma-specific MM intervention—Inner Resources for Stress (IR; Waelde, 2022)—that integrates MM considerations into client conceptualization and treatment planning, taking into account that different MM techniques and usage intensities have different effects and may be matched to client needs and capacities to promote trauma resilience and recovery. This flexibility within manualization is conductive to a transdiagnostic, developmentally informed, and culturally responsive approach that can be implemented as trauma psychotherapy and as a preventive intervention in disaster settings. This mini-workshop will include didactic presentation, demonstrations, vignette practice, and discussion to address IR’s essential skills, including matching MM techniques to the client’s needs and capacities, use of client debriefing and In-the-Moment interventions in-session, and promoting between-session practice and application of the techniques to help the client overcome avoidance, regulate intrusive stress reactions, and encounter and resolve trauma material. In addition, ways to adapt and implement IR to disaster settings will be discussed.
Outline: • Inner Resources for Stress (IR; Waelde, 2022) is a transdiagnostic, developmentally informed, and culturally responsive approach to using mindfulness and meditation (MM) in trauma treatment • IR can be implemented as trauma psychotherapy and as a preventive intervention in disaster and other settings • IR therapists rely on case and cultural conceptualization for appropriate implementation • Different MM techniques and usage intensities have different effects and may be matched to client needs and capacities to promote trauma resilience and recovery • Didactic presentation, demonstrations, vignette practice, and discussion will address how to o match MM techniques to the client’s needs and capacities o conduct client debriefing and In-the-Moment interventions in-session o promoting between-session practice and application of the techniques o adapt and implement IR to disaster and other settings as a preventative intervention
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the session, the learner will be able to:
Explain the theoretical and empirical basis for using mindfulness and meditation to promote trauma resilience and recovery.
Describe mindfulness and meditation techniques and their match for differing client presentations and intervention settings.
Describe how Inner Resources for Stress can be flexibly implemented to match clients’ diverse cultural backgrounds.
Long-term Goal: Participants will be able to conceptualize the use of mindfulness and meditation in trauma treatment from a culturally humble perspective.