“Recurrent depression is characterised by people who have very negative thoughts about themselves, other people and the world, and those negative thoughts can quickly go into a downward spiral of depressive relapse,” he said.
“As an example, a mother of a young toddler in one of my classes was pushing her toddler on a swing, she had the thought: ‘I don’t deserve this happiness, this happiness isn’t going to last, I’m not a good mother.
“Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy enables someone like her to see those as thoughts and not as facts – as phenomena that can come into the mind and pass through the mind but aren’t necessarily true about her or about her relationship with her child. That can break up and prevent the downward spiral into depressive relapses."
Mindfulness, which has its roots in ancient Buddhist meditation practices, is also being considered as a therapy to help people overcome the psychological impact of having other long-term medical conditions, and has also been trialled in schools to improve children’s attention spans and lower stress levels.
Dr Liz England, clinical lead for mental health at the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), said that patients often did not want to be reliant on drugs in order to feel better, adding that the RCGP encouraged “alternative evidence-based therapies for mental health problems”.
The treatment is recommended for depression by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
How to be Mindful
Proponents of mindfulness say it can be useful to all, reducing stress levels and improving mental wellbeing. The technique is centred around awareness of our own thoughts, feelings, sensations and the world around us.
The NHS Choices website recommends people who want to try mindfulness pick a time of day, such as the morning walk to work, or lunch break, to be actively aware of the sensations created by the world around us and to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings in their head, without attempting to act on them, only to ‘observe’ them.
By Charlie Cooper,
The Independent, Tuesday 21 April 2015
View this article
