The power of mindfulness in interpersonal relationships

There is no way to escape writing about the last weekend. Dear Manuella O'Connel was with us at CEFI leading the mindfulness workshop in interpersonal relations. It was an entire Saturday and an intense Sunday morning in practices. I am sure I left different from how I entered. This means being present in what I think, I feel or what happens to. My surrounding, without clinging, allowing thoughts and emotions to pass like clouds in the sky or waves at sea. Contextual therapies, mindfulness is an essential tool for change. The therapist exercises the presence to choose more appropriate interventions, observe the patient clearly or teach the patient himself to observe. This posture makes mindfulness not just a technique but a context of transformation. The news that the Argentine psychologist brought us was to use mindfulness as a vehicle of change! That is, use this attention to the relationship to transform the patient's relational standards. No matter what is so much "right" or "wrong" to say, but how the other's words resonate in me. I learned that if I am indeed connected with that relationship, in the "me, now," I can capture what can often not be said by the patient, and this enhances intervention deeply transformatively. It requires FAP (Functional Analytical Therapy) motto: consciousness, courage and love. When we speak from this posture, the connection with the other is inevitable. And how beautiful it would be if we could bring this to all our relationships, not just like therapists, but as people. This learning has touched something very valuable in me: the desire for peace between people and in the world. It was by this ideal that I chose to study journalism - I wanted to contribute to a fairer society. And after disappointment with the profession, psychology has opened me new ways to improve people's lives, albeit more individually. Psychotherapy need not be just intellectual. Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy - DBT) already described the dialectic between rational and emotional mind, found in the wise mind. Being before the other in full attention is at the same time challenging and transformative. It is as if each silence gained meaning, and each word would finally come from the heart.

Viviane Grafitti