What Is the Experience of Using Mindfulness as Selfcare for Newly Qualified Counselling Psychologists: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Early career counselling psychologists often experience high stress associated with the start of their new career and the nature of the profession. Proactive self-care is therefore necessary to ensure personal well-being and effective client care. Mindfulness has recently been suggested as an effective approach to self-care. As existing evidence indicates, mindfulness practice leads to a vast array of benefits in mental health professionals.
The present study explores the experience of newly qualified counselling psychologists who use mindfulness as a self-care strategy. It applies a qualitative methodological approach in order to explore in-depth lived experiences of these individuals. It aims to bring further insights to the under-researched area of early career therapists and their strategies for selfcare.
Seven newly qualified counselling psychologists who had previously engaged in a contemporary mindfulness programme and subsequently decided to use it as a form of selfcare participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The analysis produced three master themes including ‘Journey of discovering mindfulness as a self-care approach’, ‘Developing selfmastery’, and ‘Enjoying meaningful personal and professional life’. Each master theme also
contained several subthemes.
The study findings suggest that application of mindfulness as self-care is a personally tailored embodied process that is continuously evolving. This progressive journey connects to experiences of positive adjustments within the self, as well as in personal and professional life contexts.
The findings are discussed in relation to the existing literature and suggestions for future research and study limitations are offered. Implications for professional practice particularly relevant to the field of counselling psychology are also discussed.