TPC-Journal-V5-Issue1

The Professional Counselor /Volume 5, Issue 1 40 what is taking place in the present” (p. 822). Despite a growing research base, mindfulness as a testable and operationally defined variable is still being shaped. Bishop et al. (2004) proposed an operational definition of mindfulness as a two-component skill-building approach for responding to emotional and cognitive distress. The first component involves the self-regulation of attention. Measurable skills must be obtained to reach a successful level of self-regulation of attention, including sustained attention; switching, or bringing the attention back to a focal point; and inhibition of elaborative processing, which involves the ability to maintain a state of flexible and nonjudgmental focus and awareness over a period of time. The second component includes developing an orientation to experience. In this, all thoughts, feelings and sensations are acknowledged. Mindfulness training works well in counseling in that it is a simple idea: staying focused on momentary experience (Grabovac, Lau, & Willett, 2011). The core strategy to teach clients is mindfulness meditation. Meditation has many forms but is ultimately the practiced skill of quieting the mind (Wright, 2007). Counselors trained in meditation can teach clients to sit quietly and observe thoughts and feelings without reaction or judgment (Brown et al., 2013). A version of this meditation is the 3-minute breathing space (Segal et al., 2002). This meditation approach is a core skill learned in MBCT. It utilizes the breathing techniques of meditation while attempting to bring awareness to present experience, focusing on breath as a mediator and expanding to other bodily sensations. Because mindfulness is rooted in Buddhist philosophy and belief, its inclusion in Western counseling paradigms has been slow. Most interventions and models consisting of mindfulness-based ideas have been stripped of the Eastern religious and philosophical foundations and presented as skill-based acquisitions (Baer, 2003). This change has increased acceptance of mindfulness-based approaches in mainstream treatment and educational venues. Specifically, using mindfulness to mitigate stress has been a benefit of this practice. One particular population that has historically reported high levels of stress is nursing students (Beddoe & Murphy, 2004). Nursing Students and Stress The Spring 2013 American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment (American College Health Association, 2013) listed stress as the number-one impediment to academic success for college students. Specifically, college students training to be nurses at the university level are subjected to high levels of stress (Gibbons, Dempster, & Moutray, 2011). Pulido-Martos, Augusto-Landa, and Lopez-Zafra’s (2012) review of the literature on the nursing student experience found several factors leading to stress, including balancing home and academic demands, experiencing time management pressures and financial problems, lacking meaningful connections with the nursing faculty, and feeling unprepared and incompetent in clinical practice. In addition, stress, combined with other issues, has led to significant attrition rates in nursing programs (Harris, Rosenberg, & O’Rourke, 2014). Stickney (2008) found that the number of new students in nursing programs is too low to ensure an adequate number of nurses to meet the future needs of health care agencies. Students in nursing programs experience significant amounts of stress from trying to balance their lives at home with academic responsibilities. It is imperative that counselors, especially those in college settings, are aware of effective and innovative interventions to help nursing students, as well as other students, reduce stress and be successful. MBCT has shown promise in helping people reduce negative emotions such as stress (Collard, Avny, & Boniwell, 2008; Teasdale et al., 2000).