Abstract
This portfolio consists of a research dossier undertaken as part of the Practitioner Doctorate in Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychology training. The research dossier consists of three pieces of research: the literature review and two qualitative studies. The literature review provides an overview of mindfulness practice and identifies areas for future research investigation. In the second year of training the main research focus was on participants’ first experience of mindfulness practice by employing interpretive phenomenological analysis. In the final year a constructivist version of grounded theory was utilised to develop an understanding of participants’ disengagement from mindfulness practice. Both of these empirical studies aimed to develop a greater understanding of the lived experience of participants who embarked on the journey of mindfulness practice.