Interview with Javier Elcarte: Mindfulness as a therapeutic tool

Mindfulness or full attention is an increasingly used resource in psychotherapy to work alterations linked to the regulation of emotions and anxiety.

However, and despite its usefulness, in comparison with other psychological intervention tools, it is not easy to explain what it is or how it works.

Unraveling the keys to understanding Mindfulness, with Javier Elcarte

on this occasion we talked with Javier Elcarte, neuropsychologist and therapist founder of the Vitaliza psychology center, located in Pamplona, ​​so that he can explain to us what he knows about Mindfulness from his specialized perspective.

This expert organizes several "Mindfulness meetings" to carry out therapeutic interventions far from traditional model of the patient attending the psychologist's office, and has spent years training people in care full.

In summary, what is Mindfulness and how does it apply to the therapeutic field?

Our mind, in a habitual way, constantly wanders from here to there without orientation or perspective, jumping from one thought to another, dragged by emotions. Mindfulness, in this sense, is the ability to be aware of the contents of the mind at all times.

Through the practice of Mindfulness or full attention we learn to focus our attention in a consciously, without identifying with those thoughts or emotions that distance us from reality and they distort.

Mindfulness or full attention is nothing more than enhancing the brain's natural ability to perceive itself and consequently, live the present moment fully. And this is where we place the therapeutic use of mindfulness.

Indeed, this mind's ability to see itself, the brain's ability to map itself, is becomes an extraordinary therapeutic tool, useful for most schools and approaches psychotherapeutic.

It is about making the patient aware of her internal states, including traumatic events if any, in addition to help you develop the ability to remain fully conscious, to hold yourself in a calm state in the memory of said events. This is especially important in any body-focused therapeutic approach.

What is the relationship between Mindfulness and the traditional practice of meditation?

Westerners should be a little more humble when talking about Mindfulness or full consciousness. Those of us who come from the practice of meditation, prior to the Mindfulness boom, know perfectly well that it drinks directly from meditation oriental, especially Zen Buddhist, and which is nothing more than a formatting of traditional meditation to the needs and parameters of society and of the mind western.

The great contribution of Kabat Zinn has been to collect an ancient science and transform it into a tool psychology susceptible of being popularized and incorporated into the world of health, both medical and psychological.

Many times there is talk about the importance of focusing attention on the present moment. Why is this beneficial?

In the community of teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (Plum Village) in France, the flow of daily life is interrupted by a bell that rings every fifteen minutes and that makes all the members of the community stop their activity for a moment, focus on their breathing and become aware of their state at that moment.

Despite its relative youth, Western Mindfulness is one of the most extensively researched therapeutic approaches. As a result of them, we can affirm that mindfulness is the therapeutic tool that produces the greatest changes in the brain at a neurobiological level, especially everything related to anxiety and stress, which is like saying almost everything, because the correlate of anxiety appears in practically all pathologies mental.

Like everything, nothing is a panacea, and Mindfulness can also become an avoidance tool or reactivate recent traumatic memories, so the use therapy of full attention should always be in the hands of health professionals duly trained and approved, moving away as much as possible from esotericisms empty

What role does emotion management play in all of this?

Inevitably, most of the therapeutic approaches, regardless of their orientation or psychological school, do not stop being different ways of getting the The patient learns to recognize, accept and manage the emotions that overwhelm and overflow, whether they are the product of external (exogenous), internal (endogenous) or internal (endogenous) triggers. both.

And it is in this context where mindfulness becomes a unique tool, making the patient someone much more aware of her internal states, and therefore of being able to recognize and accept her emotional world and sensory.

But what is even more important, the practice of Mindfulness will allow the patient to "hold" in full consciousness when those emotions or overwhelming sensations appear, so that he can, from the hand of the therapist, learn to manage states that were previously terrifying or traumatic

What are the advantages of attending a therapeutic Mindfulness meeting at Vitaliza?

At Vitaliza we like to talk about "encounters", because that is what they are, life encounters, from the practice of mindfulness.

For us, these meetings, like the weekly or weekend groups, are just one more part of the triangle therapeutic intervention composed of psychotherapy itself and the tools of regulation, neurofeedback and Mindfulness.

There are many dysfunctions that it is very difficult to fully resolve in the office with the therapist and that need "real" intervention contexts.

The meetings that we call "Sharing in Full Consciousness" are unique opportunities for the participant to take a definitive leap in the coping with traumas, blockages and insecurities, in a real life context, sustained from meditation or full attention, collected and wrapped by the respect for the group and understanding of colleagues, and directed by expert and competent therapists both in meditation and in approaching the trauma.

In general, what goals do people who attend Mindfulness meetings set for themselves, and how are they helped to achieve them?

The participants of the meeting know that they are going to a space where, from the conscious presence, they will experience scenarios that will activate their states. interiors, in a context of deep respect and with the security of being picked up and cared for at all times, which will promote for them a unique opportunity, based on three foundations: full attention, security and respect, to recognize, accept and manage emotions and states previously painful and overflowing.

The basic modus operandi of the meeting is that, from a conscious presence, we learn to establish contact with the other, to “resonate” with him through what we call “relational meditation”.

To do this we must be able to maintain full attention and thus be able to regulate our own states and those of others. This state of resonance in mindfulness facilitates and encourages compassion and psychological integration.

Finally, could you tell us about the case that you remember the most and that makes you feel the best about a person you have helped through Mindfulness?

The truth is that there are many, innumerable. One of the ones I remember most fondly is that of a girl who came to Vitaliza with a severe anxiety-depressive condition with self-injury. Let's say her name was Maria.

Maria couldn't relax. When trying to relax she was vomiting and terrified. Based on practice and conscious attention, we managed to get her to relax in the presence of the therapist (safe place). Severe trauma was intuited, but there were no concrete clues.

Little by little, from the cultivation of full attention and sustained by a very solid therapeutic bond established with myself, we were observing that sometimes she "did not remember what she had done". We discovered that periods of "complete amnesia" occurred, where she did not remember anything that had happened, especially when she was involved with boys.

We were facing a case of severe, tertiary dissociation. Working with the different states, always from full attention and a solid therapeutic bond, Maria was finally able to connect with the "deleted" part, which produced a strong emotional reaction and the appearance of a lot of memories forgotten. Clear memories of shocking abuse, loneliness and mistreatment emerged, which Maria was able to sustain thanks to the work of Mindfulness and my safe and welcoming hand.

At this time, Maria stated that "she had begun to inhabit her body." Phrase I will never forget.

From then on, the amnesias ceased, as well as the self-harm, Maria's life has regained meaning and she is in a moment of personal construction from art and life. She is a reference for many people and through drawing (she draws extraordinarily well) she expresses aspects of her inner journey, before terrible and unknown, now intense and grateful.