What is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy?
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an 8-week group course recommended for people who suffer from or have suffered from depression in the past. It involve mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy exercises to support you to become more aware of your mind and body and to recognise and move away from some less helpful habits of thinking, such as rumination, worry and self-criticism.
MBCT helps us develop an alternative way of being with experience as we learn skills to more fully engage with our present experience, to be ‘in the moment’ as opposed to being on ‘automatic pilot’.
What is the research behind MBCT?
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been shown to be effective in numerous randomised, controlled trials, and is now recommended as a treatment for mild to moderate depression by the UK’s National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE). It has been found in research to be as effective as anti-depressants at preventing relapse after recovery from clinical depression.
Research has also shown that mindfulness helps us understand how we can react and respond to the events in our lives with a greater sense of perspective. It indicates that those who bring mindfulness into their daily lives generally experience better quality of life, feel more aware, appreciative, and content.
What to expect on this course
This is a structured course where each session builds upon what has been introduced before, so it’s important to attend all of the sessions. The course is delivered online in weekly sessions lasting 1 hour and 45 minutes. You will be in a small group and each session has guided and structured meditation practices and exercises which are followed by a review of what you and/or other participants experienced or discovered. It’s a review of the practice or exercise rather than a discussion of people’s past history.
Sessions include suggestions for personal practice of up to 30 minutes a day – both recommended guided practices, and also ways to cultivate new habits of mindfulness in everyday life. There’ll be space to review the previous week’s personal practice in the following session.
You’ll have access to resources which gives you guided practices and written material to support your learning.
On this course, you will learn:
To better understand the patterns of recurrent depression.
How to ‘stabilise attention’: to recognise mind wandering and ‘autopilot’, and how to bring attention back to where we want it to be – with interest, patience, and care.
Two different ways of being (through direct experience) and knowing (through thinking).
More about how the mind creates meaning.
To recognise our patterns of reactivity and how trying to get rid of distress may actually keep us stuck.
To bring a sense of care and kindness to ourselves in those moments of distress and reactivity.
To use mindfulness to respond skilfully, not react – in ways that support the well-being of ourselves and of others around us.
To ‘step back’ a little from our direct experience so that we can see it more clearly, and so choose a kinder response.
To build what we have learnt into our everyday lives.
Entry criteria
You can apply for this course if you:
Live in the UK and are registered with a GP.
Have a history of depression, or are currently experiencing an episode of mild-moderate low mood.
Are over 18 years of age.
Can commit to attending all 8 sessions of the programme.
Have both the time and motivation to dedicate up to 30 minutes of personal practice each day.
Have access to suitable technology (laptop/PC rather than mobile phone), a strong and stable internet connection, a private space and the technical ability to join an online training programme via Zoom with your camera on.
Are able to speak and understand English (both spoken and written) to a level where you can fully take part in the course without the need for additional translation support.
This course is not suitable for you if you:
Currently have severe depression: high levels of depression can make engaging in mindfulness and CBT exercises difficult.
Are having suicidal thoughts or urges: mindfulness meditation can be difficult in these circumstances.
Are experiencing a recent significant life event or stress that is causing considerable distress (such as a bereavement or traumatic incident in the last year).
If any of the above apply, please contact your GP or mental health support team.
Interested in finding out more or enrolling yourself on the next MBCT course? If so, please fill out the following form and I will get back to you shortly.
