The mindful way through depression how to#
The mindful way through depression free#

We kind of hit the pause button, because we didn’t want to take a treatment that was designed to help people come out of depression and just continue to sort of spool it forward to people in recovery. And what I did with that money was to bring together two colleagues of mine, Mark Williams, who is at Oxford, John Teasdale, who is now at Cambridge, and we sat together and thought about how would we go ahead and do this, modify this treatment, provide something to people who are in recovery to help them stay well.ĪLSO READ: Deri Llewellyn-Davies: F*** The Fear, It's Not Real Anyway (Full Transcript) I received a small grant from the MacArthur Foundation to try to modify an existing treatment for depression so that it could prevent relapse. My work was quite distant from meditation and other contemplative practices. And I was a card-carrying member of a cognitive therapy group working in an outpatient clinic at a hospital. I was tasked with addressing the problem of relapse and its prevention. And this is really where my work in the area started. Getting well is half of the problem, staying well is the other half. What we now understand about depression is that it is an episodic and recurrent disorder. The complex challenge involves helping people recover from depression and to stay well. But the complex challenge that depression provides us with is to do more than allow people to let go of symptoms and returning to their lives.

And there’s a good reason for that - the reason is that these are treatments that were developed to alleviate depression, to alleviate the suffering of patients who are trying to get their lives back on track and also to reduce the capacity for self-harm that is often carried by an untreated and undiagnosed depression. I’ve witnessed new generations of antidepressant medications being developed - the use of magnetic coils to stimulate the skull and affect different brain regions the implantation of electrodes into the brain in regions that are thought to promote recovery from depression, and even the customization of talk therapies to address certain subtypes of depression.īut let’s face it, the concept of meditation was never high on that list. I’ve worked in the field of mood disorders for over 30 years and I’ve witnessed a number of advances in treatments. Listen to the MP3 Audio here: The mindful way through depression by Zindel Segal at TEDxUTSC Plus, mental health professionals, see also the authors' bestselling therapy guide: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition.Cognitive psychologist Zindel Segal discusses The Mindful Way Through Depression at TEDxUTSC – Transcript See also the authors' Mindful Way Workbook, which provides step-by-step guidance for building your mindfulness practice in 8 weeks.

The mindful way through depression free#

Jon Kabat-Zinn gently and encouragingly narrates the accompanying CD of guided meditations (also available as free audio downloads for purchasers), making this a complete package for anyone seeking to regain a sense of hope and well-being.

The mindful way through depression how to#

Through insightful lessons drawn from both Eastern meditative traditions and cognitive therapy, they demonstrate how to sidestep the mental habits that lead to despair, including rumination and self-blame, so you can face life’s challenges with greater resilience. In The Mindful Way through Depression, four uniquely qualified experts explain why our usual attempts to “think” our way out of a bad mood or just “snap out of it” lead us deeper into the downward spiral. Mindfulness, a simple yet powerful way of paying attention to your most difficult emotions and life experiences, can help you break the cycle of chronic unhappiness once and for all. If you’ve ever struggled with depression, take heart.