Mindfulness encompasses awareness and attention; for example, mindfulness occurs when we are conscious, aware and attentive to our present state. The mind is open, receptive and aware.
What is Mindfulness?
Awareness monitors the inner and outer environment and attention is the process of focusing conscious awareness, providing heightened sensitivity within a limited range of experience. Mindfulness is about “paying attention in a particular way: in the present moment, on purpose and non-judgementally” (Jon Kabat-Zinn). It is enhanced attention to and awareness of the current experience or the present reality.
In contrast, mindlessness is blunted, restricted consciousness or obsessively thinking about the past. Having fantasies or anxieties about the future that have the effect of removing one from what is happening in the present is an example of mindlessness.
Mindfulness is not a belief, an ideology or a philosophy; it is a description of mind, emotion and suffering. It is an idea that develops over time and is greatly enhanced through regular disciplined practice, both formally and informally, on a daily basis. Mindfulness helps to disengage individuals from automatic thoughts, habits and unhealthy behaviour. (Pearls).
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been used by J. Teasdale, M. Williams and Z. Segal to develop relapse prevention in clients who suffer from depression. The underlying theory is that depression can be prevented through meta-cognitive awareness or insight. It trains clients to control their attention by focussing on specific thoughts, feelings and sensations.
These thoughts, feelings and sensations can be positive, negative or neutral. In contrast to Cognitive Therapy, Mindfulness does not try to alter content of beliefs; the aim is to loosen the patterns of negative thinking that escalate into depression.
The core skill of Mindfulness Therapy is to enhance the ability to step out of the negative thinking process by being mindful of the moment and letting go of the constant strive to escape unhappiness. Becoming aware of the moment discourages functioning on automatic pilot. Letting go of the need to judge the current moment and learning to accept the current state without judgment is the heart of mindfulness. Mindfulness focuses on the observation of thoughts and feelings and the recognition that thoughts are not facts; they simply are a result of being in the present moment.
My MBCT Sessions
MBCT Session 1
- Visit your body
- Finding out about your autopilot
- ‘Stopping’ is the first step
- Viewing the body as the emotional “barometer”
MBCT Session 2
- Finding out about the habit mind
MBCT Session 3
- Dealing with difficulties
MBCT Session 4
- Allowing difficulty to stay
- Defining the territory of depression
MBCT Session 5
- Encountering difficulties and moving into them gently
- Allowing tension, distress and negative emotions to unfold without needing to control them or get away from them
Beginning your Mini Meditation
- Taking the Habit into the little moments
- Breathing space as a regular habit
- Breathing space as a way of creating space
MBCT Session 6
- Realizing thoughts are not facts
- Developing a different relationship with thoughts rather than suppressing thoughts or changing thought content
- Introducing Mood Induction exercise
MBCT Session 7
- Taking action
- Behavioural activation
- Thinking of actions & behaviours that “nourish” us and keep us well
MBCT Session 8
- Learning relapse prevention
- Devising your own relapse signs of emotional distress and putting an intervention plan in place
Practicing
- Developing non-attachment to outcome is crucial
- Taking radical departure from current clinical practice
- Experiencing non-goal directedness, staying with “whatever there is to be experienced”
- Achieving avoidance of experiential avoidance
- Moving towards painful experiences with willingness to experience whatever there may be to be experienced
In conclusion MBCT is also acceptable and applicable in a secondary mental health setting. Some common difficulties reported in MBCT may be more marked because of severity and chronicity of the disorder. Significant improvement occurs in depression and anxiety. Change may be mediated by metacognitive awareness.
