Distribution: Mindfulness leads and therapists
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat Zinn is the original MBP, with application for long-term medical conditions including pain. It developed as a form of participatory medicine to empower people to access their resourcefulness in managing their conditions.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) developed from this “parent” programme to address mental health, in particular as a depression prevention programme for people vulnerable to repeat episodes. It combines a theoretical and experiential understanding of mindfulness with a psychological model informed by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Adaptations have been made to these core MBPs in response to clinical need, staying faithful to the growing evidence base and its adherence to the original tenets of the programmes. These are essentially “high intensity” therapeutic interventions which have been applied to clinical settings and are to be distinguished from life-style or wellbeing interventions. In non-clinical settings, MBPs can also be applied in the field of health promotion, for enhancing resilience and promoting mental health and wellbeing, of particular relevance in the post-Covid recovery.
What does it mean to be “mindfulness-based”?
A mindfulness-based programme is fully embedded in the theory and practice of mindfulness. A participant engaging in this will not only acquire a toolbox of practices to apply mindfulness in their lives, but will also have experienced mindfulness as a deeper quality of being which allows for a new way of experiencing and relating to our lives.
A distinctive feature of the MBPs is the systemic and extensive training in informal and formal mindfulness meditation practices, such as meditation and mindful movement for therapist and participant alike. For the mindfulness therapist, this equips them with an experiential understanding of mindfulness practice, the nature of mind and human suffering. The personal practice allows the therapist to “know the territory” of working with the habits of mind, to “embody” the essence of the practice and to develop a stance of “being alongside” as opposed to only delivering a therapy to the participants. Because of this, the therapist training pathway includes the development of a sustained personal practice of mindfulness.
It is important here to distinguish between MBPs and other therapies which may be “informed” by mindfulness or which may incorporate mindfulness as a skill alongside other non-mindfulness components. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT) and Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) may all incorporate mindfulness components as part of their therapy approaches, but they do not require that the therapist is embedded in and teaching from the mindfulness qualities and experience of personal practice themselves. With MBPs, mindfulness is the main vehicle of change.
In Summary,