The Study

This research project drew on a model used previously used for two studies (Burrows, Reference Burrows2011b, Reference Burrows, Shute, Slee, Murray-Harvey and Dix2011c). These were projects supported by education professionals, including school counsellors, an attendance officer, regional behaviour advisors, and a wellbeing coordinator, to use mindfulness-based inquiry methods to assist in responding more effectively to the unsettling behaviours of children, colleagues and parents. As in the previous studies ‘Jan’, a school counsellor, was asked to:

• • identify a child (this particular study did not include colleagues or parents) whose behaviour was causing concern

• • give herself and the child and anyone involved a pseudonym

• • email the dilemma/case before beginning the mindfulness and reflective practices

• • practise the ‘soles of the feet’ meditation (Singh et al., Reference Singh, Lancioni, Winton, Adkins, Singh and Singh2007) as formal practice at home (see the following link for an interview with a school counsellor about this meditation:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzoerv42KDw&list=UUhAumjy26uts_hvywCSdgvQ&index=2)

• • practise the same meditation as informal practice at work whenever she knew she would shortly be seeing the child

• • take regular ‘mindful’ walks, which involved tuning into the inner sensations of the body as she walked, gently bringing her mind back to the present moment when it wandered

• • read and digest short articles on mindfulness

• • consider a range of therapeutic stories and activities that may be suitable for the child

• • reflect in her journal on her dilemma and email weekly reflections

• • share ideas with the consultant/researcher and genuinely wonder together about alternative possibilities

• • consider enacting the consultant/researcher's suggestions and report on the results.

Professional Learning and Support

As already noted, mindfulness training and professional development in education is an emerging area of research and practice (Roeser et al., Reference Roeser, Skinner, Beers and Jennings2012). Professional learning in general appears to be most effective when it addresses issues identified by teachers and is situated in relationships and contexts that support teacher learning (Day, Reference Day2004; Kitchen, Reference Kitchen2010; Webster-Wright, Reference Webster-Wright2009). The professional learning approach used for this and previous research included the delivery of reading and resource material tailored for the issue being explored by the participant. Strengths-based and responsive feedback and empathic acknowledgment of the challenges they were facing in their work was also regularly provided.

Hanko (Reference Hanko2006, p. 47) has argued persuasively that psychologists and counsellors working in education environments need to feel their endeavours recognised and feel themselves cared about as they care for colleagues and children in often overwhelmingly difficult work settings.

Tailored and supportive professional learning has therefore the potential to function as a type of much needed informal supervision for school counsellors. In this way it can provide a context and an opportunity through which to build alliances and embody the kind of attunement school counsellors require if they are to connect with their most challenging students as behavioural consultants Rogers, Murrell, Adams, and Wilson (Reference Rogers, Murrell, Adams, Wilson, Greco and Hayes2008) found in their mindfulness work with schools.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness has come to be associated with awareness and acceptance of present moment experience, with the aim of reducing an individual's stress and suffering (Kabat-Zinn, Reference Kabat-Zinn2003). It can, however, also be understood as an awareness that is ‘embodied and feelingful’ (Stanley, Reference Stanley2012). For Langer (Reference Langer2000), mindfulness has to do with an enhanced appreciation of multiple perspectives in problem solving and increased openness to new information. Mindfulness can assist in providing a space from which to observe our habitual, automatic, emotionally charged reactions, by bringing awareness to the present moment and helping us see that certain powerful reactions have the capacity to take hold of us and drive our behaviour according to Wolstenholme (Reference Wolstenholme2002).

A number of researchers have shown that mindfulness can be a valuable resource for professionals to assist them to calmly respond rather than overreact to unsettling and provocative behaviour in children (Brown, Reference Brown, Miller and Nakagawa2002; Jennings & Greenburg, Reference Jennings and Greenberg2009; Roeser et al., 2010). In the main, research in mindfulness has focused on the use of various techniques to assist in disengaging from powerful emotions in order to reduce stress and decrease reactivity. This approach can lead, according to Chogyam and Dechen (Reference Chogyham and Dechen2002, p. 5), to a belief that we should ‘rise above’ our emotions and move into ‘a state in which the pause button has been depressed, where there is little chance of feeling anything at all’ (Allione, Reference Allione2008, p. 37).

In the more relational approach to mindfulness adopted for this project the intention is to deepen awareness of the present experience with acceptance, and to facilitate the development of the capacity to connect with another (Surrey, Reference Surrey, Germer, Seigel and Fulton2005). In this approach the professional is encouraged to attend to the flow of the relationship and the shifting qualities of connection and disconnection, aiming to stay emotionally connected with the child through a process of empathic attunement.

In addition, there is an emphasis on incorporating activities into our work with children that help to create an atmosphere conducive to mindfulness. These activities can include knitting, sewing, drawing, making models, poetry, music, and storytelling. Cairns (Reference Cairns2002, p. 165) suggests that adults acknowledge the experience of stillness when it occurs and ‘hold’ it for short periods so that vulnerable and hypervigilant children can begin to develop ‘a pattern for peacefulness’. This space has been referred to by Riikonen and Vataja (Reference Riikonen, Vataja and Parker1999, p. 181) as an ‘area of emptiness’ that can begin to come in between what happens and our reactions, which can generate a sense of emotional freedom. In this space it becomes possible to befriend our own and others’ emotions and see them as messengers, information bearers and teachers rather than negative energies needing to be tamed, suppressed or denied, according to mindfulness teachers Chogyam & Dechen (Reference Chogyham and Dechen2002).

Emotions

Many education professionals find working with children a ‘profoundly emotional form of work’ that can include ‘unsettling and dark emotions such as guilt, shame, anger, jealousy, frustration and fear’ (Hargreaves Reference Hargreaves2001, p. 1058). The word ‘emotion’ dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means ‘to stir up’ (Merriam-Webster, 2004). When adults and children are ‘stirred up’ it creates a ripple effect in the community; as Orbach (Reference Orbach, Clarke, Hahn and Hogggett2008, p. 33) has observed: ‘We affect one another. We cannot not.’

According to holistic counsellor Sherwood (Reference Sherwood2008), anger is the single greatest emotion that challenges schools. Chogyam and Dechen (Reference Chogyham and Dechen2002) suggest that the root of anger is fear and feeling powerless. Viewing anger in this way has the potential to change how professionals respond to young people who challenge us with their reactive and aggressive behaviour. While professionals involved in education commonly use behavioural and cognitive behavioural strategies to try to ‘control’ student outbursts of aggression, these may, however, intensify behaviours in children with underlying trauma conditions (Burrows, Reference Burrows, Shute, Slee, Murray-Harvey and Dix2011; Cairns, Reference Cairns2002; Jureidini, n.d.; Sherwood, Reference Sherwood2008).

In the North American medicine wheel teachings, emotions include being passionately involved in the world, compassion, anger at injustice, the refinement of feelings and the ability to set strong emotions aside to serve others (Bopp, Bopp, Brown, & Lane, Reference Bopp, Bopp, Brown and Lane1984). In many traditional cultures ‘wise elders’ have drawn naturally on metaphors and stories in their role as mentors and guides for the children in their tribes and communities, ‘using wisdom tales to guide and invoke behaviour’ (Perrow, Reference Perrow2008, p. xvi).

Therapeutic Stories

Therapeutic stories can be used by school counsellors to assist children with emotional and behavioural problems through meeting them where they are, developmentally (Burrows, Reference Burrows2011a, Reference Burrows, Bottrell and Meagher2008; Campbell, Reference Campbell2007). Therapeutic stories are stories that can help address unresolved issues, difficult transitions or arrested development, or to help in preparation for a challenge (Kornberger, Reference Kornberger2006). For Harper and Gray (Reference Harper, Gray and Dwivedi1995, p. 53): ‘Stories can be the vehicle through which issues and conflicts too frightening and dangerous to be voiced can be given expression in a metaphorical way.’

Similarly, Schwartz (Reference Schwartz2000) suggests that when using therapeutic stories to address particular behaviours that it is important to let the children ‘digest’ the story and see the effect of their behavior as though it were happening to someone else.

Such stories can assist in healing and making a strong connection with an individual child, particularly when the right tale is told at the right time (Kornberger, Reference Kornberger2006, p. xiii). For Schwartz (Reference Schwartz2000), a story's effectiveness can be enhanced if ‘the teller is mindful of the right moment and context to tell it’ (p. 164). According to Harper and Gray (Reference Harper, Gray and Dwivedi1995), storytellers need ‘an acute sense of therapeutic timing’ and if stories are ‘Carefully chosen both in term of purpose and timing and are told by a trusted and respected person they have the capacity to be life-changing’ (p. 47).

Storytelling can support anxious children experiencing difficulties with attachment and self-regulation, by providing a safe environment for children to consider and express negative emotions (Burrows, Reference Burrows, Bottrell and Meagher2008, Reference Burrows2011a; Campbell, Reference Campbell2007; Jureidini, n.d.; Reference Jureidini and Timimi2006; Perrow, Reference Perrow2008). Children with emotional, behavioural and learning difficulties are more likely to need non-verbal activities that do not require sophisticated language skills, and are developmentally appropriate and engaging (Burrows, Reference Burrows2007, Reference Burrows2011a; Campbell, Reference Campbell2007).

Professionals can draw on therapeutic stories such as ‘The Red Beast’ (Al-Ghani, Reference Al-Ghani2008) as in this case study, to address the specific needs of individual children, or to tendencies arising in a group or class, or at home for aggression or negativity, which he or she would like to see modified or transformed. The story of the Red Beast proposes that within us all a red beast lies sleeping. When it is asleep it is quite small. However, when it is triggered by a particular event, it wakes up, and begins to grow and grow. Strangely, as it grows its ears begin to shrink, its eyes get smaller and smaller and yet its mouth grows bigger and bigger. The story suggests, as does Wolstenholme (Reference Wolstenholme2002), that the anger is trying to make us act out a script and that sometimes it is so powerful we cannot stop it. As the story shows it takes enormous strength not to act it out.

The Red Beast: Controlling anger in children with Asperger's syndrome (A-Ghani, Reference Al-Ghani2008) is a story born out of a mother's experience with her autistic son, who illustrated the book. It was introduced to Jan by the researcher/consultant as part of the professional learning project.

Data

In relational research, data is seen to emerge out of an evolving, dynamic and interactional process (Finlay & Evans, Reference Finlay and Evans2009, p. 6). For James (Reference James2007), a powerful benefit of using email for data collection lies in its potential for diffusing power relations between researcher and participant. She has argued that the egalitarian nature of email facilitates a closer connection between researcher and participants via dialogue and interaction, and a ‘genuineness of self-presentation’ (p. 972) in the context of a relationship she describes as a non-coercive exchange. Like James (Reference James2007), I have been struck by the degree to which participants in my previous email-based studies wanted to reflect upon and transmit their experiences faithfully. Selected excerpts from Jan's reflective emails to the researcher are therefore presented below, to convey her unfolding experience of mindfulness, reflection and telling of the story ‘The Red Beast’ in her own words.

Jan, Matt and the Red Beast Within

Once Jan had identified the child she wished to focus on for the study, she was invited to practise the ‘souls of the feet’ meditation and mindful walking, and to share her how she was feeling and any developments in her weekly journal. Each week she received responsive emails in return, acknowledging strengths and insights and building on her ideas for intervention with suggestions, information and links to resources. Jan's first email outlined her dilemma and her feelings about it:

In her second email reflection Jan reflected that she felt lighter, having shared her feelings and thoughts with ‘someone who was interested’. She noted that she felt more aware and realised that:

A week later (October 16, 2012) Jan wrote that the soles of the feet meditation was helping her to feel more positive about her dilemma.

She also wrote that she was now aware of the importance of finding the right opportunity to read the story and that: ‘It has to be a moment that is organic. I feel the reading experience has to be a natural occurrence and not too contrived.’

The next week (October 23, 2013) the following email was received:

The following week Jan wrote to say Matt had ‘had a huge meltdown in the yard which she was called to’.

The Professional Learning Partnership Between Counsellor and Researcher

This study had the advantage of having a consultant/researcher who had her personal mindfulness practice, was a trained counsellor, and had a background in working with students with special needs and behaviour difficulties and education professionals. Clearly, the positive partnership between consultant/researcher and school professional in this case study was able to provide a supportive container for both the practice of therapeutic applications of mindfulness and the receipt of professional support and guidance on issues that arose as a result of Jan's inquiries into herself and the child she was both disturbed by and concerned about.

This case demonstrates the importance of school counsellors being able to access support to become aware of and ‘unblend’ from their emotions and reactions so as to be able to work with children with emotional difficulties. While Jan was an experienced and able counsellor, this child had ‘really rattled (her) cage’. As Hanko (Reference Hanko2006) has shown, school counsellors and psychologists need to have their own emotions contained and supported by their leaders and organisation. This professional learning project in mindfulness was able to provide a degree of informal professional support and supervision for Jan to help her attune to a child who triggered powerful emotions in her. She clearly appreciated the opportunity to express herself in her journals to someone who could provide friendly support and guidance as indicated by her final email (November 5, 2012):

Mindfulness

Jan's practice of mindfulness and reflection clearly helped her to become much more aware of her own troubling emotions and intense bodily sensations. During the course of the project she developed the capacity to become attuned empathically with Matt, so much so she became aware of ‘putting a smile on her heart’ when she thought of him. This supports Surrey's (Reference Surrey, Germer, Seigel and Fulton2005) view that mindfulness practice can help us ‘break out of isolation and contraction into a more spacious state of mind and heart’ (p. 95).

This case has clearly shown that if counsellors are not comfortable with their own emotions they are unlikely to be able to fully support and accept a child's experience of anger (Earley, Reference Earley2012). For Kornfield (as cited in Allione, Reference Allione2008) it is through calmly accepting and welcoming our emotions that we can learn to ‘transform their energy and find freedom and in their midst’ (p. x). As school counsellor and writer Kohler (Reference Kohler2003) has observed, this calmness is then transmitted to the child, which can result in significant gains for a young person in terms of their own self-confidence and emotional balance, as occurred in this case.

For McCown, Reibel, and Micozzi (Reference McCown, Reibel and Micozzi2010), it is essential to have a mindfulness guide who authentically embodies the spirit or essence of the practices being taught. They see this as an important element in being able to successfully catalyse the capacity for mindfulness within others. This study's findings supports their view; as Jan was assisted by the consultant/researcher to become aware of her feelings and sensations through the mindfulness and reflective activities, she was then able to access the energy previously tied up in her difficulties to assist Matt go through a similar process of self-acceptance (Allione, Reference Allione2008).

The Story and the Place and Timing of Its Telling

Stories can help to restore equilibrium and wholeness where behaviour is out of balance, as storyteller and consultant Perrow (Reference Perrow2008) has observed. In this particular case, the story helped to create an atmosphere of understanding and empathy between the counsellor, child, and the social skills group. Matt and the other children were able to experience their feelings vicariously through the vehicle of the story, which was at some distance from their own real life issues (Compton, Reference Compton and Dwivedi1997). The story of the red beast operated on a powerful metaphoric level, suggesting it was possible that Matt and the other children (and perhaps the counsellor), as with the child in the story, could access support when needed and that he did not have to carry the burden of having to sort everything out by himself (Burrows, Reference Burrows2011a; Compton, Reference Compton and Dwivedi1997). It may be that the content of the story, with its message of befriending the anger and not fighting it, also assisted Jan to respond differently (Compton, Reference Compton and Dwivedi1997). Both Matt and Jan (and less directly the other children) were supported to feel it was both acceptable and safe to experience the emotion without necessarily enacting it, knowing reassurance and help was available.

As Jan found, stories are often useful for bringing up areas for discussion that may otherwise have been difficult by self-questioning (Compton, Reference Compton and Dwivedi1997). When Matt and the other children spontaneously made the connection between Matt's ‘meltdown’ and the story, as Kornberger (Reference Kornberger2006, p. 95) has observed, this is ‘the stage of imaginal empowerment and creative activism. At this point the patient becomes the healer, the listener becomes the teller and the reader is the new maker of tales.’

Compton (Reference Compton and Dwivedi1997) has also written about children freely recognising their own situation in a therapeutic story and interrupting its telling, suddenly calling out ‘that's just like me!’ In this case, Matt demonstrated a particularly heightened level of awareness in that he was able to see that the child in the story, like him, was not so much angry as frightened. As Chogyam and Dechen (Reference Chogyham and Dechen2002) suggest, it is the root of anger, as already noted. As Sherwood (Reference Sherwood2008) has observed, the ‘first step in emotional literacy is to be able to name and identify a feeling that you experience in your body’ (p. 27).

Just as in The Red Beast book, when Matt became aggressive, he was kindly assisted by the adult and children to gain an insight into his behaviour, which helped him feel a new sense of calm, safety and belonging in the group. While the story provided the therapeutic content, it was Jan's own practice of mindfulness and reflection in the context of the support provided by the consultant and the professional learning research project that allowed her to notice, connect with and attune to the child and the class, and then find the right moment to read the story in the right manner, not analysing it but allowing it to be absorbed and ‘slept on’ by the children, only to re-emerge as wisdom to draw upon when Matt had a ‘meltdown’.

It is important to note that Jan had previously prepared the environment before telling the story to the children. The safe space and sanctuary created through her mindfulness practice was both physical and relational and led to ‘something bigger, stronger’ than she had previously experienced, as if she could ‘reach out and touch it, that it had a presence’. This is similar to Cairns’ (Reference Cairns2002) notion of ‘stillness’, and Riikonen and Vataja's (Reference Riikonen, Vataja and Parker1999, p. 181) ‘area of emptiness’.

There was therefore no need for Jan to explicitly connect the story being read to the children with the situation that led to this strategy being taken, as her preparation and timing allowed the story to bring their emotions up into their awareness so they could experience the emotion of anger and fear vicariously. For Schwartz (Reference Schwartz2000), a story's effectiveness can indeed be enhanced if ‘the teller is mindful of the right moment and context to tell it’ (p. 164).