What is it about?
This paper highlights the difference teachers' and counsellors' practice of mindfulness brings to their use of therapeutic story telling to support children with behavioural difficulties to tune into and self regulate their emotions. In addition it demonstrates how mindfulness can help to build a positive, attuned and inclusive learning environment.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This study continues to add nuance to current research on mindfulness that tends to focus on the decontextualised use of techniques that focus on the individual by showing how teachers' and school counsellors' own mindfulness practice helps them be attuned to the needs of their students and to respond in a timely manner to these needs, particularly for engagement and inclusion.
Perspectives
I particularly appreciate the journey of the teacher/counsellor as reflected in her own words and insights. As a highly experienced practitioner she was not prepared to stay with her feelings of overwhelm regarding the student but to search within herself for the best way to respond to his behaviours which also involved connecting him in more securely with his peers through creating a sense of community.
Leigh Burrows
Flinders University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Transforming ‘The Red Beast’ Within Through Mindfulness and Therapeutic Storytelling: A Case Study, Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, September 2013, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1017/jgc.2013.17.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
