Millennial Learning: April 16-17, 2009
James Walsh
Evening Session: Mindful Learning

James Walsh, Ph.D., is a Pastoral Counselor in private practice in Newark, DE and is an Assistant Professor for the MS in Community Counseling program at Wilmington University, where he teaches and provides clinical supervision for intern students. In his private practice Dr. Walsh provides a broad array of counseling services including individual therapy, couples counseling, and counseling for compulsive gamblers and their families. Dr. Walsh was appointed by Governor Ruth Ann Minner to membership on the Board of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Professionals, a board of the Division of Professional Regulation. He is a Psycho Forensic Evaluator Consultant for the Office of the Public Defender in DE. Dr. Walsh has taught graduate courses in Pastoral Counseling at Neumann College and has provided training workshops for several years for the State of Delaware’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health on a variety of topics, mostly incorporating spirituality in a therapeutic milieu. He received his Ph.D. in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola College, MD. Jim has also had extensive training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, a clinical tool that incorporates spiritual values as a psychological intervention in stress management. His most recent publication is a chapter titled “Pathological Gambling” in the textbook A Christian Guide to Abuse, Addictions, and Difficult Behaviors.

Mindful Learning

This session is being co-presented with Doris G. Lauckner.

Mindfulness, the capacity of the mind to pay attention with intention, is generally considered a quality of meditation, usually within the context of religious systems. Indeed, the practice of mindfulness has been an essential aspect of Buddhist training for millennia. However, the empirical investigation of mindfulness by various branches of the social sciences in the past decade has shown that mindfulness is a trait characteristic that can be developed and enhanced through instruction. Outcome studies of mindfulness training have demonstrated that mindfulness can be taught and that its incorporation into one’s mindset has a variety of benefits, ranging from relief from neurotic disorders to improvement in immunological responsiveness.

Instructors who practice mindfulness have the opportunity to share the benefits of this ancient discipline with their students in a number of ways. The purpose of this session is to consider the impact of a mindfulness practice on the person of the instructor and his/her relationship to students and the learning process. Consideration will be given to helping students become more mindful within the context of classroom instruction. Drs. Lauckner and Walsh will lead a brief mindfulness exercise and will give information concerning ways to cultivate a deeper mindfulness practice to those with interest.