Mindfulness Counselling in Fremantle

Mindfulness and Meditation: What’s the Difference?

People often use the words mindfulness and meditation interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same.

Mindfulness is a quality of awareness. Meditation techniques are ways of developing it

You could also say they are different applications of the same quality of awareness. Meditation tends more towards pure awareness — a more transcending experience. Mindfulness brings this awareness to your present experience so that you can work with it.

In counselling and psychotherapy, mindfulness does not require you to have a meditation practice already. It can be learned gradually through paying attention to what is happening in simple and practical ways.

Meditation practices can deepen mindfulness. But mindfulness can also be practised in therapy, in relationships, in movement, and in daily life.

Why Mindfulness Gives Therapy More Depth

One of the limits of insight alone is that people can understand themselves very well without necessarily changing.

They may know why they react in a certain way. They may be able to trace a pattern back to childhood. They may understand the logic of their anxiety, relationship struggles, or self-criticism. But still, in the moment, the same pattern takes over.

Mindfulness changes the quality of this process.

When a person is able to stay present to their experience with enough steadiness, unconscious material begins to come into awareness. Instead of remaining hidden inside automatic reactions, body tension, emotional habits, and old beliefs, it becomes something that can actually be observed.

This is one reason mindfulness can work so deeply. Going through unconscious material can otherwise be endless. A person can talk around it, analyse it, or keep circling the same themes. But when that material is brought into awareness in the present moment, something deeper becomes possible.

There is less automatic reaction. More awareness before acting. More ability to stay with what is there long enough for it to show itself.

That is where therapy begins to move beyond intellectual analysis.

Mindfulness, Core Beliefs, and New Emotional Learning

Much of what shapes our lives operates outside immediate awareness. Core beliefs about ourselves, others, safety, worth, intimacy, or control can organise our whole experience without us fully seeing them.

Mindfulness helps make these beliefs more visible.

When a belief is experienced not only intellectually, but in a felt way — in the body, emotions, impulses, and inner responses that come with it — it often becomes clear just how much it has been shaping a person’s life.

This kind of awareness can change something. It allows a belief to be met directly, rather than only talked about from a distance.

When people practise mindful awareness therapuetically, they are not only gaining insight — they are also building new ways of responding. Research suggests that mindfulness-based practice can support changes to the brain’s wiring, particularly in areas related to attention, emotional regulation, and self-regulation.

In therapy, that means change is not only conceptual. Over time, new emotional learning can begin to take root. Old reactions can become less automatic. There can be more space, more steadiness, and more freedom in how a person responds.

How Mindfulness Is Used in a Session

The process of mindfulness in therapy is not about trying to “be calm” or forcing yourself to think positively.

It is about learning to stay with what is real in the present moment, with enough awareness and support that deeper material can safely come into view.

In mindfulness-based therapy, we slow things down enough for an experience to come into awareness more clearly. Rather than immediately analysing, avoiding, or reacting, we begin to notice how it is showing up in the body, emotions, and mind.

This is where mindfulness becomes powerful.

It helps create less fusion with thought and less automatic reaction. It gives more awareness before action, more contact with body and feeling, and more ability to stay with experience long enough for its deeper organisation to become visible.

This also means we can safely get in touch with unresolved experiences and wounded parts of the self, not by painfully reliving the past or retelling your whole story, but by finding how those experiences are being held in your mind, body, and emotions now, in the present.

That gives us something real to work with.

What Can Change Through Mindfulness-Based Therapy?

The changes that come through mindfulness-based therapy are often subtle at first, but they can be profound.

People often become less caught in thoughts and less driven by automatic reactions. They may find they have more awareness before they act, more contact with what they are actually feeling, and more capacity to stay grounded when something difficult arises.

For some, this means less anxiety, less reactivity, or a greater sense of regulation. For others, it means feeling less cut off from the body, less overwhelmed by emotion, and more able to stay present with experience.

Mindfulness can also change the relationship a person has with themselves.

Instead of being driven by old beliefs and patterns without knowing it, they begin to recognise them. Instead of being fused with every thought or reaction, they begin to hold experience with more perspective and compassion.

This can change a person’s life, not because it is dramatic, but because it changes the way they are with themselves from the inside out.

Mindfulness Beyond Therapy

Mindfulness can also be developed outside therapy. Here are a few examples of how to do this.

For some people, meditation becomes an important support. There are many different ways to meditate, including sitting cross legged with your eyes closed. It is worth looking into different approaches and seeing what works for you. Movement practices such as yoga, tai chi and mindful walking, can strengthen mindfulness. Through these practices we can learn to come back to present moment experience in daily life.

The key thing is not the form of practice. It is the quality of awareness.

When mindfulness becomes part of life more broadly, it can support the work of therapy and help the changes made in sessions become more integrated.

A Research-Informed Approach

Mindfulness has a strong evidence base as a support for stress reduction, emotional regulation, and mental wellbeing. Mindfulness has had a great deal of research done into it since the 1970s, and has been shown to be helpful in many different ways.

In practice, what matters is that mindfulness helps people become more aware of their inner patterns and respond to them differently.

That is what makes it such a powerful part of therapy.

An Inclusive and Respectful Space

I welcome people from all backgrounds and identities. My practice is inclusive and affirming of anyone who has felt marginalised or unseen in broader society. Everyone’s story deserves understanding and respect, and I aim to create a space where you can bring your full self — without having to explain, justify, or shrink who you are.

Medicare Rebates and Practical Details

If you have a Mental Health Treatment Plan from your GP, you may be eligible for Medicare rebates for sessions with me as an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker.

Sessions are available in Fremantle, and online sessions may also be available where appropriate.

Arrange a First Session

If you would like to explore whether this way of working feels right for you, you are welcome to book a session or arrange a brief introductory phone call.

Uplift Counselling is based in Fremantle and works with people across the wider Perth area.