Mindandbodytwoinone
8-Week MBCT
In Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) integrated mindfulness practices and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The programme (8 weekly sessions) aims to help the participants to learn to become more aware of their internal (their emotions, thoughts and mental images, their reactivity, impulses and their physical sensations) and external world. They experientially learn about how their minds work, about their thinking patterns, and how their minds and body are consistently interacting. By experientially realising and understanding these patterns, the participants begin to comprehend the nature of their difficulties and learn to stay with and relate to them in new, adaptive ways. They learn to choose more skilful responses to prevent themselves from continuing their unhelpful habitual ways of thinking and behaviours that keep their difficulties and suffering going on.
Also, the MBCT programme can be offered to the general population as a preventative approach to equip the participants with skills to cope wisely and skilfully with internal and external difficulties in the future.
Indeed, there is mounting evidence supporting the reliability and efficacy of MBCT in targeting depression and other mood disorders. Therefore, it was recommended by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for clinical and general populations.
8-Week MBCT-L
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Life (MBCT-L) is a simplified adaptation of the MBCT programme that developed for the mainstream—all of us. The MBCT-L programme takes us through structured 8-weekly sessions (each about 90 minutes) that promote understanding of our difficulties and nurture skills and attitudes that can really change things within and for us. The learning is largely experiential and is based on practising mindfulness formally and informally, on cognitive exercises and on exploration of our experiences in enquiry forms. It helps us to learn a new way to work with difficulties that we encounter in our lives but also a different way of relating to ourselves and others—a way that includes more contentment, appreciation, wisdom, compassion, and empathy.
8-Week MBRP
Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) is an after-therapeutic/care intervention that aims to help participants achieve recovery from substance use disorders (SUDs) and reduce the risk of relapse. This 8-week, person-centred and trauma-informed programme is developed for small groups and adapted to one-to-one facilitation. The flexible structure of the programme makes it suitable for various settings and populations, including inpatient rehab, sober living homes and hospitals, and various addiction therapy programmes. It can also be integrated into early recovery as a standalone approach.
In MBRP integrated core elements of the Relapse Prevention programme, CBT and mindfulness practices. The programme focuses on helping participants improve awareness of personal (internal and external) triggers, cravings, high-risk situations, automatic thinking, and habitual impulsive reactions. It also helps participants learn to recognise challenging negative thoughts, emotions and bodily discomforts, to stay with them, relate to them and respond to them in new adaptive ways. Moreover, it helps them to foster non-judgemental, accepting, compassionate attitudes towards themselves and their experiences, which represents a fundamental mainstay of the intervention. Finally, it helps them build a lifestyle that supports both mindfulness practice and recovery, which is the ultimate goal of the programme. These aspects altogether contribute to reducing the risks of relapse and maintaining long-lasting abstinence.
By integrating mindfulness practices into their daily life, the participants improve their levels of trait mindfulness, attentional control and acceptance skills, learn to observe their thoughts and feelings non-judgementally as mental events, face their challenges and sufficiently cope with high-risk situations, urges and cravings. From a psychological perspective, the programme promotes the participants’ psychological flexibility, self-esteem, self-control and emotion regulation, enabling them to respond to high-risk situations, cravings and triggers in a more adaptable manner.
Wednesday community meditation
When practising together, we find ourselves surrounded by people who are here for the same reason—proactive self-care. In such an environment, we feel our universal human vulnerability and strengths and our connection with each other, which is another benefit of practising together. Regularly practising mindfulness meditation gradually improves non-judgemental attitude, our concentration, accepting ourselves as we are, compassion, empathy, and social interaction and relationships.