Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy is an innovative, empirically validated treatment program designed to prevent relapse in people who have recovered from unipolar depression and has shown promise in the treatment of mood disorders more generally. Self-knowledge grounded in sustained meditative awareness is its central tenet. Based on the research of Drs. Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale and documented in their book Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, the program integrates tools of cognitive therapy with the practice and clinical application of mindfulness meditation.
The heart of MBCT lies in acquainting patients with the modes of mind that often characterize mood disorders while simultaneously inviting them to develop a new relationship to these modes. Patients learn to view thoughts as events in the mind, independent of their content and emotional charge. They need not be disputed but are held in a more spacious awareness, large enough to contain aspects of the self deemed both broken and whole.
