What is Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy and How Can It Help You?
Written by Dr. Farhan Shahzad and Sarah Davies-Robertson
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. It’s about knowing what is on your mind.”
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) combines both Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness techniques to help individuals manage thoughts and emotions.
MBCT was originally developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale. It works to help people learn how to use cognitive methods and mindfulness meditation to interrupt automatic processes that lead to depression and/ or anxiety. In depression, an individual will feel both mental and physical symptoms, such as weariness, sluggishness, and so forth. Even when the depression subsides, if a low mood hits the individual this may, by way of triggering automated body and mind patterns, create another episode of depression by triggering negative memories and anxious thoughts about the future.
Feelings are not facts. MBCT helps clients to separate themselves from their thoughts and moods. By focusing on the now, individuals can stop the cycle of rumination where negative thoughts are replayed over and over again. They, essentially, can remind themselves that thoughts and feelings are not facts.
