Mindful Social Work: From Theory to Practice

The literature on spirituality and social work reveals a shift from an initial stage of defining concepts like spirituality and religion and their relevance to social work and to current implementation of spiritually oriented techniques in therapy. This reflects epistemological and ontological shifts as social work has opened up to holistic and transpersonal theories assuming the existence of a metaphysical reality. Within these paradigmatic shifts, mindfulness has emerged as a central practice to expand consciousness for the purpose of self-observation and knowing the world. Recent research demonstrates that mindfulness can gradually achieve outcomes like acceptance, letting go, trust, non-judgmental attitude, and selfawareness. In addition to its facilitation of individual change in clients' internal and external worlds, mindfulness has the potential to effect change in therapists, in the profession of social work, and in the world at large.