In recent years, Mindfulness has established itself as a very useful tool in psychological therapy. This is especially true in large cities with great international projection, such as Madrid and Barcelona.
In this case we will focus on the Catalan capital to see what the day-to-day life of a Barcelona psychology center that uses this set of practices in its care of patients is like. This is Psicotools, an organization that offers Mindfulness services in Gràcia Vallcarca area.
What is Mindfulness?
First of all, let’s start with the basics. What is Mindfulness? It is a set of physical and mental practices that aim to place the person’s attention focus on the present moment valuing the experiences of the here and now from a perspective free of prejudice and without giving in to worries and obsessions about things that happened or that could happen later.
Thus, everything that is done throughout the Mindfulness exercises is aimed at experiencing one’s own consciousness for what is really happening, and not for our biased interpretations of what happened in the past and what could happen in the future. ; Hence, Mindfulness is also known as Full Attention or Full Consciousness: one’s own state of consciousness is fully felt, without additions arising from worries and experiences that generate anxiety.
On the other hand, Mindfulness It is inspired by an ancient practice common in many regions of India: Vipassana meditation However, Mindfulness has been developed as a group of exercises unrelated to any religious burden and based on clear and systematically applied instructions, so that it can be a scientifically studied tool that everyone can use in the same way, without irregularities. no room for ambiguity.
Psicotools: psychology applied to Mindfulness in Gràcia
Something that stands out about Psicotools is that it focuses a large part of its services specifically on Mindfulness. This is a trend that is increasingly seen in clinics and psychology centers: the use of methodologies linked to the management of attentional focus to regulate negative emotional states, pain and, above all, anxiety.
And the psychological states linked to anxiety are present in practically all forms of emotional and behavioral discomfort: phobias, obsessions, emotional dependence, relationship crises, etc. Stress and anxiety not only indicate that something is wrong in our lives, but they also contribute to maintaining this discomfort, creating a vicious circle of anxiety. Tools like Mindfulness allow you to break this cycle and take control of the situation again
For this reason, at Psicotools they apply Mindfulness in many contexts of psychological intervention: education and support in childhood, organizational psychology and business dynamics, and, of course, psychotherapy with patients who present disorders. Let’s see how it is used in each case.
Mindfulness in education
Childhood is a key stage in which it is essential for boys and girls to learn to manage their emotions.
Therefore, doing Mindfulness sessions can be useful: from simple exercises adapted to their age, It accustoms them to adopt a mentality free of value judgments, more neutral and constructive, which protects them from many experiences of frustration, resentment and stress. These Mindfulness practices are varied and easy to do, similar to simplified forms of meditation, and on many occasions they can be done collectively, something very useful in classrooms at educational centers but also at home with siblings.
For this reason, Mindfulness services in education, which have differentiated formats for children and adolescents, teachers, and parents, help to learn the fundamentals of Mindfulness and apply them both to children and to oneself, in the case of the youngest in the house.
Mindfulness in the company
Mindfulness is a great ally in the organizational context, especially taking into account the ease with which business environments expose us to stress and psychological wear caused by uncertainty and the need to adapt quickly to market variations. That is why many of the leading large multinationals, such as Google or Nike, have implemented Mindfulness programs among its workers.
Psicotools is one of the psychology centers that offers organizational intervention services based on Mindfulness, and whose design adapts to the specific objectives of the contracting companies: development of resilience skills in harsh contexts, stress management, improvement of productivity and of the use of time, etc.
It is a trend that is being seen in psychology clinics in large cities, and that responds to the new needs that emerge in cities with a dynamic and competitive economy. For companies to adapt to the new, their workers have to be focused
Mindfulness for therapy and daily life problems
Finally, Psicotools also carries out Mindfulness programs for individuals who simply want to improve their quality of life and their way of facing reality. For it, This psychology center relies, among other things, on the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) lasting 8 weeks and with the aim of improving stress management, a practically universal problem that affects us all sooner or later.
This program, based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, offers the necessary practice to perform Mindfulness exercises in many different situations, so that it can be used in a semi-improvised way in the face of everyday challenges.
Conclusion
The example of Psicotools and its Mindfulness services shows how one of the Minfluness references in Gràcia adapts these practices to very diverse purposes based on principles so simple that they are easy to adapt to various objectives.
And part of the potential of Mindfulness lies in how simple it is to teach it and use it on a daily basis, which is why the popularity of Mindfulness has been spreading in parallel through very diverse areas, from schools to law firms. of lawyers. Knowing how to take advantage of this tool depends on each person.