A Multisite Pre/Post Study of Mindfulness Training for Therapists: The Impact on Session Presence and Effectiveness

To date, little research has tested whether the use of mindfulness by clinicians results in actual changes in psychotherapy sessions. The purpose of this multisite study was to test whether a brief 5-week mindfulness training program could lead to improved session presence and effectiveness for trainee clinicians (n = 31).

At the end of 85 pretraining and 132 posttraining sessions, clients completed the client version of the Therapist Presence Inventory (TPI-C; Geller, Greenberg, & Watson, 2010) and the Session Rating Scale (SRS; Johnson, Miller, & Duncan, 2000).

Although the levels of client-rated presence did not differ between pretraining and posttraining sessions, sessions that occurred after the training were rated by clients as more effective compared to the pretraining sessions, t(170.91) = 2.63, p = .01, d = .30.

This study provides preliminary session outcome evidence supporting mindfulness training for clinicians.