Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is useful in helping people deal with depression and the psychological and emotional aspects of chronic pain and serious illness. MBCT encourages clients to process their experiences without judgement as it happens, assisting them how to change the way they relate to challenging thoughts, feelings and events. Clients learn to accept that difficulties take place in life, it is possible to work with them in new ways.

It is helpful in working with depression, the psychological aspects of long term and terminal illness including many degenerative health conditions. MBCT is based on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction . MBCT is a fusion of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy(CBT) and MBSR. So as MBCT is helpful in the relapse of depression it is also helpful in aiding people who experience the following:

The creators of MBCT adapted the MBSR program so it could be used for people who had repeated bouts of depression. The UK National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) endorsed MBCT as an effective treatment for prevention of relapse of depression. Recent research has demonstrated that people who have experienced depression 3 or more times , often for many years, discover that MBCT reduces their chance of depressive experiences returning. Through practice you gain the skill of looking inward as whatever arises in your experience.

Sometimes this feels opposite to our instinct to avoid unhelpful thoughts, difficult and challenging experiences or sensations. MBCT will help you understand what your depression is and what makes you vulnerable to mood swings, and how and why you get trapped in a cycle of low mood. It will help you discover the relationships and connection between mood changes and the setting of unrealistically high goals and standards- that can sometimes be associated with depressive experiences.

Unhelpful thoughts and sensations of feeling overwhelmed or unworthy can also be understood and MBCT also can help to relieve the pressure that you can sometimes place on yourself when were are feeling overworked, overwhelmed, trapped and have lost touch with the things in that that make it worth living.

Individual Classes

If you would like to know more please contact me in the 'Consult with Christopher' section of my website, and you can find out about fees, appointments and various ways of having a session.