Mindfulness Meditation and Stress: Its place in therapy
October 18 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Mindfulness Meditation and Stress: Its place in therapy
Friday, October 18, 2024
Registration 8:30am Program 9am to 12pm
Presented By: Lavanya Devdas, Ph.D., MSW
Location: Live Online Workshop
3 CE Credits
This workshop will focus on the tenets of mindfulness meditation and its incorporation into the therapeutic process and ways mindfulness can be included in modeling strategies and interventions for clients. Using evidence-based research, this workshop will also highlight the benefits and efficacy of mindfulness meditation in therapy and stress management. Using experiential exercises and videos, this workshop will demonstrate the practical applications of mindfulness for stress management in therapy. Clinical implications will be discussed.
Objectives:
- List different types of stress.
- Demonstrate at least two mindfulness meditation techniques related to stress management.
- Describe the tenets of mindfulness meditation.
- Apply the factors discussed in this session in planning for, and providing mental health clinical treatment to adult populations in the U.S.A.
Dr. Lavanya Devdas is a licensed psychologist in PA and has a private practice in Doylestown, PA, for mental health therapy for adults. She treats anxiety, depression, panic attacks and relational challenges within the context and lived experiences of the individual. Her master’s degree in social work (MSW) and community-based experiences in India for 3 years shape her style in considering individual, group, communal, and systemic factors that influence the meaning of struggles in one’s life and one’s identity. Combining her systems approach with her training in a doctoral degree in counseling psychology from Lehigh university, PA, in the past 4 years she has implemented an integrative approach that focuses on the individual’s preferences
and values within familial and social environments, and coping strategies including mindfulness. She is currently a certified mindfulness meditation instructor trained under the two-year mindfulness meditation certification program by Dr. Jack Kornfield and Dr. Tara Brach. She is currently in training to present on the mind-body practices of the Bon Tibetan tradition of meditation by Marcy Vaughn. She was also part of the courageous conversations grant that focused on developing a framework for talking about the isms and having difficult conversations at her University. She continues to be passionate about promoting culturally sensitive approaches in working with adult populations, including mind-body approaches that support the over -all well being of individuals and groups based on their cultural values and preferences. She currently teaches an advocacy and social justice course for masters level students at Delaware Valley University, Doylestown, PA.
Dr. Devdas herself juggles two or more cultures and understands the cultural switches that need to happen depending on the cultural contexts. She also served as a mentor through the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, and the Division on South Asian Americans. She is also a strong proponent of groups and outreach and has had training and experience in running groups for cultural adjustment, graduate student support, interpersonal process groups, intersecting identities, mindfulness for stress, and navigating acculturative stress among international students.
She has been a consultant on topics related to mental health, mindfulness and inclusion and belonging and has done presentations for consulting organizations such as KGA. She has also been a panel speaker for topics such as intersecting
identities, addressing mental health concerns from a cultural perspective, and intersecting feminism and culture, and stress management. The populations she has worked with, and presented on, include families of immigrants, refugees and students under the DACA status, and permanent residents and the range of concerns included acculturative stress, trauma, intergenerational family conflict, cultural values conflict, alongside anxiety and depression and limited access to mental health resources. She has also worked with faculty and staff in providing community consultations around language and ways of addressing mental health concerns among students on campus and engaged in this role at universities, including Cornell University from January 2018 until May 2019.
PSCP: The Psychology Network is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. PSCP: The Psychology network maintains responsibility for this program and its content.