Cassandra Vieten – författare

Spirituality and religion are powerful dimensions of our psychology as human beings. Decades of research, clinical experience, and centuries of cultural practice have demonstrated their vitality for human growth and flourishing. Likewise, when people struggle with their spirituality and religion, such issues can cause enormous disruption psychologically and socially. Translating this knowledge into practical clinical skills is known as spiritual and religious competencies. However, despite their salience to mental health, mental health education and training has frequently neglected to equip students and clinicians with the necessary attitudes, knowledge, and skills to ethically and effectively address their clients' spirituality and religion. This "training gap" in spiritual and religious competencies can be partly attributed to lack of tangible, practical, and feasible methods for translate this knowledge base into mental health professionals' routine practice. Without such training, students and clinicians often believe spirituality and religion are not relevant to their professional work in ways that overlook core strengths or problems in their clients' lives-potentially throughout their careers.This book is written to bridge the gaps between psychological research on spirituality and religion and clinical training and practice across the fields of counselling, psychology, social work, and marriage and family therapy that align with contemporary ethical and accreditation standards. Each chapter is written for faculty instructors, supervisors, and other leaders who want guidance for addressing spirituality/religion in their education and training endeavors. Namely, in readers will find approachable and actionable strategies for promoting spiritual and religious competencies that are sensitive to common concerns of mental health educators and supervisors, guidance for infusing spirituality and religion competence into existing graduate courses and training frameworks, and, finally, research-based pedagogical strategies that freely provide materials such as case videos and vignettes, free and open-source training modules, and instructional guides to implement as either stand-alone offerings or integrated into training curricula and structures.This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

From hormones to stretch marks, labor pains to diaper changes, motherhood is an adventure like none other. The rapid changes in your body, your lifestyle, and your very identity call for a certain mental and emotional agility. Mindfulness can help you meet the challenge and approach every experience with your new baby with open eyes and an open heart. Based on research conducted at California Pacific Medical Center, and with a foreword by beloved meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein, Mindful Motherhood: Practical Tools for Staying Sane During Pregnancy and Your Child's First Year (New Harbinger/Noetic Books, May 2009, $16.95) by psychologist and mom Cassandra Vieten, has been acclaimed by women's health experts, mindfulness teachers, and psychologists alike.Mindful Motherhood provides pregnant women and new moms with a brief, low-cost, easy to implement set of tools to deal with stress, difficult moments, depressed or anxious moods, and negative thought patterns during pregnancy and early motherhood. Based on the principles of mindfulness, this book also provides information, exercises, and ideas to enhance the positive emotions that are part of the experience of motherhood and improve the quality of mother-infant interactions, bringing more attention and awareness to the deep joy and satisfaction that motherhood can bring.Mindful Motherhood provides pregnant women and early moms with:1) accessible information based on science and sound clinical theory,2) practical tools for practicing mindfulness in everyday life,3) stories and examples to inspire interest and clarify points, and4) experiential exercises that will help readers integrate the informationand experiences they have.Mindful Motherhood also offers current insights into the positive psychology of motherhood and mother-infant attachment, translating science and theory into jargon-free language and immediately applicable tools. This book is aimed specifically toward pregnant women and mothers with infants, who would like to deal more effectively with stress and mood during pregnancy and postpartum, who are interested in being the best parent they can be, and who want to cultivate a deeper connection to themselves and their children.The goal is to help women become the kind of present, authentic, connected, emotionally competent, psychologically-balanced, and loving mothers they want to be not to mention enjoying the extraordinary experience of motherhood to its fullest extent.Why it is ImportantA large body of evidence in both animal and human studies indicates that stress and mood disturbance experienced during pregnancy increases the risk for preterm birth, low birth weight, and other pregnancy-related complications, and may adversely affect the developing fetus. Postnatal mood disturbance can interfere with attachment, healthy parenting behaviors, and child development. While a wealth of evidence supports all these facts, surprisingly little information is available to women and clinicians for reducing stress and improving mood in pregnancy and postpartum.Mindful Motherhood is the only book oriented toward teaching research-based mindfulness principles to reduce stress and improve mood in pregnant women and new moms. It is an easy but informative read that gives new moms the psychology, science and health facts behind how mindfulness can enhance mother-infant attachment, and be used in childbirth.

Imagination is a kind of magic. Through imagination, you can not only escape the limitations of the physical world but also transcend them. You can enter into states of mind that are not bound by the conventional rules of physics and space/time, or the restrictions of your physical body. You can fly, you can time travel, you can breathe underwater, you can dance with dragons. You can visit far-away friends or those who have passed away. You can experience the impossible. Nothing is off-limits when you harness the power of your imagination. Imaginative speculation allows you to be released from your pre-existing categories, assumptions, rules. To not only think outside the box, but toss the box away completely. In your imagination, you can travel through territories of possibility, through landscapes of wonder, to alternate worlds. You have within you the ultimate metaverse-a vast array of worlds with infinite potential waiting to be explored. As with any adventure, when exploring the inner worlds, it helps to have skills, tools, and a map. This book is that map.

Imagination is a kind of magic. Through imagination, you can not only escape the limitations of the physical world but also transcend them. You can enter into states of mind that are not bound by the conventional rules of physics and space/time, or the restrictions of your physical body. You can fly, you can time travel, you can breathe underwater, you can dance with dragons. You can visit far-away friends or those who have passed away. You can experience the impossible. Nothing is off-limits when you harness the power of your imagination. Imaginative speculation allows you to be released from your pre-existing categories, assumptions, rules. To not only think outside the box, but toss the box away completely. In your imagination, you can travel through territories of possibility, through landscapes of wonder, to alternate worlds. You have within you the ultimate metaverse-a vast array of worlds with infinite potential waiting to be explored. As with any adventure, when exploring the inner worlds, it helps to have skills, tools, and a map. This book is that map.