Medical and Psychology Student's Experiences in Learning Mindfulness: Benefits, Paradoxes, and Pitfalls.

ABSTRACT: Mindfulness has attracted increased interest in the field of health professionals' education due to its proposed double benefit of providing self-help strategies to counter stress and burnout symptoms and cultivating attitudes central to the role of professional helpers. The current study explored the experiential aspects of learning mindfulness. Specifically, we explored how first-year medical and psychology students experienced and conceptualized mindfulness upon completion of a 7-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Twenty-two students participated in either two focus group interviews or ten in-depth interviews, and we performed an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the interview transcripts. All students reported increased attention and awareness of psychological and

SUBMITTER: Solhaug I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4923078 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature