Mindfulness Meditation for Increasing Resilience in College Students

CME EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES 1. Discuss the interplay between stress and resilience. 2. Describe the unique characteristics of emerging adulthood. 3. Describe the beneficial effect of mindfulness training on resilience. Resilience, the ability to recover psychologically from stressful or traumatic events, is often discussed in the psychiatric literature in terms of an individual's ability to recover from significant trauma. Much of the information about what builds or inhibits an individual's resilience is based on research on people who have survived severe traumas or on animal models of severe trauma. However, in the world of college counseling, the emphasis is slightly different. Although there are certainly a number of college students presenting to student counseling centers who have survived horrific challenges, a much more common presentation is the student who is having trouble adapting to more-routine life events, such as failing in academic endeavors or being rejected by a love interest. Helping emerging adults (EAs) build the resilience they need to manage their day-to-day stresses is one of the core challenges for clinicians working with college students.