Ronald D. Siegel: Integrating Mindfulness into Counseling and Psychotherapy, and Shirin Shoai: Instructor’s Manual. Psychotherapy.net, Mill Valley, CA, USA, 2015, 3hrs 11mins Running Time

In the study, members in the control group (who had no mindfulness practice) and an experimental group (who had mindfulness practice) were placed in a functional MRI, one-by-one, and subjected to pain by way of a hot laser. The results of the study showed that the control group subjects had a moderate response in the insula (part of the brain related to proprioception and body sensation) whereas the prefrontal cortex (involved in evaluating the sensation) was very active. [...]Mac had told himself that it should not happen again and he had learned to dampen his emotions and suppress his feelings—behaviors that had been further reinforced by his family and his cultural community. Siegel explains to Shalom that if he feels that the trauma might be too intense for clients to visualize the sensation where the feeling or pain resides, he would suggest drawing the client’s attention to a more distal area (e.g., the toe, object in the immediate environment).