Mindfulness A lived Experience of Existential-Phenomenological Themes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65828/qttpgq77Keywords:
Mindfulness, existential-phenomenological, present, presence, attention, awareness, opening to, neither repudiating nor pursuing, being with, moment-to-moment, body/mind, inter-relational, inter-beingAbstract
Both the practices of mindfulness and existential-phenomenological therapy are concerned with exploring human existence. Both acknowledge change, impermanence, uncertainty, suffering/existential anxiety and death, as givens of existence. Both see self and reality as relational without rigid or permanent substance. Both recognize the inter-related nature of body/mind, subject/object and self/other/world. Existential-phenomenological practice explores and examines the client's lived experience of being-in-the-world with self and others through dialogue and in the immediacy of the therapeutic relationship with the therapist. Mindfulness is a dedicated contemplative practice of deeply looking into the nature of self and reality by bringing our intention to be present non-judgmentally to our unfolding experience moment by moment. Both practices have their strengths. What if the practices of mindfulness and existential-phenomenological therapy came together?
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