Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy

Mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an 8-week group therapy intervention originally designed to reduce the risk of relapse in depression. MBCT consists of eight 2-hour weekly group sessions plus one full-day session held during the sixth week. Developed in the 1990s, MBCT was adapted from a public health education intervention—now known as mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR)—that originated within the field of medicine. MBCT sessions teach formal and informal mindfulness meditation practices for the purpose of increasing awareness of cognitive patterns believed to self-perpetuate negative affectivity. As individuals become more aware of such automatic cognitive-affective habits, they become better able to free themselves from such patterns and, therefore, to prevent escalation toward subsequent depression. Thus, mindfulness—an open and accepting quality of attention to ...

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