Research on Vietnamese psychotherapists’ perception on mindfulness therapy

Abstract

Mindfulness has attracted much attention from researchers and psychotherapists, especially in Western countries. Thousands of researches have proven that mindfulness therapy brings positive changes to clients suffering from mental health problems. A new therapy which has many similarities to one of the most influencial religions in Vietnam - Buddhism will promise to be an effective tool to improve the clients’ conditions. Therefore, the research aimed to find out the perception of Vietnamese psychotherapists on mindfulness. Researchers used a quantitative method to investigate 116 psychotherapists and a quanlitative method to conduct indepth interviews with 3 psychotherapists having experiences in practicing mindfulness. Results have shown that many psychotherapists have known about mindfulness at low level, still do not understand fully the fundamental knowledge about this therapy. In Vietnam, there is no official and adequate program focusing on training mindfulness for psychotherapists, which leads to some difficulties in applying mindfulness in Vietnam. In the future, other researches could focus on investigating the mindfulness’s benefits when applying it in clients with different disorders.