Mindful Therapy
A Way to Mental Peace in a Stressful World.
Offered individually, customized to your particular needs.
A Positive Individualized Approach
Mindfulness for Present-Moment Growth
We bring a positive perspective to mindfulness instruction. When working in the present, much change is possible. Looking at the past can be helpful too, and we do that as needed, but we believe and know that change happens in the present. With mindfulness, mental peace is a reasonable goal.
We practice by drawing on an evidence-based method of bringing mindfulness to thoughts, emotions and present experience in a way that encourages change and personal progress.
Mindful Therapy
We bring together mindfulness instruction and mentoring to help people work with their moods and emotions, enabling them to adopt a perspective that fosters thoughtful, intentional actions. By cultivating awareness, individuals can move beyond reactive behaviors and make choices that better serve their personal growth and well-being.
We offer mindful therapy in NYC and online through Annie Shackelford, trained in mindfulness by Donald. I feel Annie is an expert psychotherapist. Still it is always helpful to speak to several people before you make your choice. You can read on Annie’s background and contact her here.
Background on Mindfulness in Mental Health
Depression
Often depression carries with it a belief of personal unworthiness, and a sense that “I can’t” do the things I need to do, that I can’t make the changes that will bring me better health. With evidence-based mindfulness we bring focus to the present, where change is always possible.
With depression we practice imagining personal effectiveness and we practice learning to tolerate emotions so they can flow through rather than get blocked and overwhelming.
Anxiety
Anxiety tends to have a future focus, with thoughts like “this or that” will happen to me. With evidence-based, mindful treatment we bring attention to the present, enrich the present through mindful seeing, mindful listening, mindful hearing. We learn to sit with the peace that is possible in us when we focus on the present.
We learn to enrich our present awareness so we are not so caught in future worries. And of course we learn to create a safe space in which we can bring in fears and understand them, and in which we can gain perspective on things and realize we have many more possiblities for action than we ever imagined. With this understanding we can take actions that reduce future.
Stress
Jon Kabat-Zinn liked to say “As long as you’re breathing, there’s more right with us than wrong with us.” He also liked to ask, “What time is it?” and acted surprised when people told him the clock-time. His meaning was that it is Always NOW. In this NOW we learn to feel and tolerate our anxious feelings and emotions. We reduce our stress by learning a more balanced view of things, and by living life more healthily. Kabat-Zinn created the evidence-based Mindfulness Based - Stress Reduction more than 30 years ago to help people deal with their stress.
Out of that grew Mindfulness Based - Cognitive Therapy, which brought mindfulness and meditation to the therapy world.
Chronic health conditions
The same approach that helps so much with anxiety and depression also is effective with chronic conditions.
Research is ongoing in this area. We already have research on application of Mindful Therapy to cancer patients, people with diabetes, people with tinnitus, people with pain, and more.
