2012

There is abundant research evidence that empathic responding and related skills can be taught by combining instruction, modeling, and feedback. While easily taught, these skills are not necessarily internalized by students (Lambert & Ogles, 1997; Lambert & Simon, 2008). Greason and Cashwell (2009) concluded from their review of literature that counselor education training has focused on external and observable behaviors such as mirroring and reflection of feeling rather than cultivating the internal habits of mind needed to control attention and respond with both cognitive and affective empathy. In addition, other counselor educators have noted that students’ development of cognitive complexity has been a haphazard process and piecemeal (Choate & Granello, 2006; Fong, Borders, Ethington, & Pitts, 1997). Mindfulness practices have been used to train other health care practitioners in attention and empathic response and may be useful in counselor education programs. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of mindfulness, review the literature on mindfulness practices used in the education of health care practitioners, offer several exercises that can be used in counselor education as means of developing mindfulness, and encourage research into this promising educational practice.