What is Mindfulness? What is MBCT?

The Creation Story

Three brilliant psychologists were looking for a way to prevent depression relapse when they came across Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). She suggested they look into Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). They visited the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass Medical School, sat in on some MBSR courses, and realized this was just the structure they needed.

Together they figured out what elements of Cognitive Science were needed and set up trials. The results were astounding: The initial 3-site research showed a 50% reduction in depression relapse a full year after the end of the 8-week workshop.

The researchers are Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams and John D. Teasdale

Helpful Videos

Clinical Research on MBCT

Compiled by the American Psychological Association.

CLINICAL TRIALS

• Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (Teasdale et al., 2000)

• Metacognitive awareness and prevention of relapse in depression: Empirical evidence (Teasdale et al., 2002)

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: Replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects (Ma & Teasdale, 2004)

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to prevent relapse in recurrent depression (Kuyken et al., 2008)

• Antidepressant monotherapy versus sequential pharmacotherapy and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or placebo, for relapse prophylaxis in recurrent depression (Segal et al., 2010)

• The efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in recurrent depressed patients with and without a current depressive episode: A randomized controlled trial (van Aalderen et al., 2012)

• Web-based Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for reducing residual depressive symptoms: An open trial and quasi-experimental comparison to propensity score matched controls(Dimidjian et al., 2014)

• Adding mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to maintenance antidepressant medication for prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depressive disorder: Randomised controlled trial(Huijbers et al., 2015)

• Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy compared with maintenance antidepressant treatment in the prevention of depressive relapse or recurrence (PREVENT): a randomised controlled trial (Kuyken et al., 2015)

• Relapse prevention in major depressive disorder: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy versus an active control condition (Shallcross et al., 2015)

• Staying well during pregnancy and the postpartum: A pilot randomized trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for the prevention of depressive relapse/recurrence (Dimidjian et al., 2016)

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for patients with chronic, treatment-resistant depression: A pragmatic randomized controlled trial (Cladder-Micus et al., 2018)

META-ANALYSES AND SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS

• The effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for prevention of relapse in recurrent major depressive disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis (Piet & Hougaard, 2011)

• Efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in prevention of depressive relapse: An individual patient data meta-analysis from randomized trials (Kuyken et al., 2016)

• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for the treatment of current depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis (Goldberg et al., 2019)

• See up to date research summaries at PubMed.gov

The Co-Creators have published 3 books on the subject:

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression

The Mindful Way Workbook

The Mindful Way Through Depression

New books on MB-CT

There are excellent new books on learning to teach MB-CT. These include

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: Embodied Presence and Inquiry in Practice

Mindfulness: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology

Helpful Mainstream articles on Mindfulness

Accepting Fears, Wall Street Journal
Melinda Beck writes about the use of mindfulness and acceptance in mental health and personal growth.

Lotus Therapy, New York Times
Beautiful article on a variety of paths to mindfulness.

Yes I Suck: Self-Help Through Negative Thinking, Time Magazine
Many of us have at one time or another believed that it’s better to avoid negative thoughts. Martin Seligman has proposed that people should just think optimistically. But this bit of research refutes that, supporting a major premise of mindfulness, namely that running away from thoughts doesn’t work, that learning to be with them does work.

Brief Meditative Exercise Helps Cognition, Science Daily 
“Some of us need regular amounts of coffee or other chemical enhancers to make us cognitively sharper. A newly published study suggests perhaps a brief bit of meditation would prepare us just as well.”

We Don’t Surrender Until We Have To, New York Times
The story of a journalist and a quadriplegic. “I went home with nothing particularly resolved, but happier than I’d been in years.”

At End-Of-The-Line Prison, An Unlikely Escape, NPR – by Debbie  Elliott
In a prison for the most hardened criminals,  mindfulness  meditation is taught, and – amazingly – prisoners are responding.

Hazy Recall as a Signal Foretelling Depression, New York Times – by Alastair Gee
Describes research by MBCT co-creator Mark Williams. Over-general memory, a clinical name for hazy recall, looks like this. If you ask a person for a specific memory (something less than a day, say) about going out for dinner, and the person responds, “Dinners always bore me,” that may be an over-general memory.  The article is a bit heady, but makes an interesting connection between this and how mindfulness can help.

Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges, New York Times – by Tara Parker-Pope
Discussion of the importance of compassion for the self. Compassion is increasingly part of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and other mindfulness-based trainings.