The Ethical Space of Mindfulness in Clinical Practice

Book excerpt: Mindfulness is a burgeoning field of study and practice within mental health care and medicine. Yet ethical codes, and the philosophy of the therapist-client relationship, differ greatly between disciplines, and even more between those disciplines and mindfulness-based approaches. The potential for ethical dilemmas is therefore significant. Donald McCown breaks new ground by taking a focused look at an ethics derived from contemporary clinical mindfulness practice itself. What does a secular ethics of mindfulness look like? Who is competent to work therapeutically with mindfulness, and how does one delimit areas and levels of competence? How do clinicians ethically understand the therapist-client relationship from the therapeutic position of mindfulness? And how do clinicians respond when the necessary restraints of their professional role and ethics code come into conflict with the mindfulness-based relationship and therapeutic position? This book makes a vital contribution to the understanding of ethics as the cornerstone of mindfulness-based practice, and will be of interest to all those involved in delivering mindfulness-based interventions, including psychologists, counselors, spiritual directors, occupational therapists, physicians, nurses, and educators.