Ellis, James (12/11) The impact of meditation training on the capacity for therapists-in-training to identify alliance ruptures (Lisa Samstag, Ph.D.; Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D.; Sara Haden, Ph.D.)
The current research investigates the effects of meditation training and the teaching of mindfulness on psychotherapy graduate students. Specifically, the present study examined whether meditation training strengthens a therapist’s ability to observe psychotherapy process and astutely identify alliance ruptures between patients and therapists. This study also examined whether personal characteristics such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, tolerance of ambiguity, and acceptance predict identification of alliance ruptures and, further, whether these characteristics are affected by mindfulness meditation. Fifty-six psychology graduate students were evaluated on their ability to identify alliance ruptures (withdrawal type) in a taped therapy segment, before and after a mindfulness training intervention. Participants were assigned to either the experimental group, which underwent a guided meditation experience, or the read-only comparison group, which was given an article to read on the practice of mindfulness meditation. Participants’ written descriptions of the therapy segment were rated for sensitivity to rupture markers, therapist precipitants of rupture events and tension in the therapeutic relationship on an observer scale, adopted from the Rupture Resolution Scale – Revised. Results revealed no significant effect on the amount of rupture behavior participants identified on their post-intervention ratings. Further analysis revealed that participants in the meditation group significantly increased their post-intervention levels of emotional awareness and their ability to observe experience nonjudgmentally, one dimension of mindfulness.
