Rob Green - Final Major Project

This book presents an innovative eight-session program designed to prevent relapse in clients who have recovered from depression. Integrating cognitive therapy principles and practice into a mindfulness framework, the approach has been proven effective in controlled clinical research. The authors demonstrate how to teach clients to make a simple but radical shift in their relationship to the thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that contribute to depressive relapse. This shift can help prevent sadness from spiraling out of control. Written in a highly readable, accessible style, the book describes the theoretical basis for the approach and details each of the structured group sessions. It offers practical information on how to duplicate the program, including session curricula, samples of participant handouts, and numerous case examples and session transcripts.

The Mindful Way through Depression draws on the collective wisdom of four internationally renowned mindfulness experts, including bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn, to provide effective relief from the most prevalent psychological disorder. This authoritative, easy-to-use self-help program is based on methods clinically proven to reduce the recurrence of depression. Revealing the hidden psychological mechanisms that cause chronic unhappiness, the authors gently guide readers through a series of exercises designed to break the mental habits that lead to despair. Kabat-Zinn lends his calm, familiar voice to the accompanying CD of guided meditations, making this a complete package for anyone looking to regain a sense of balance and contentment.

It was a sudden awareness that I felt depressed simply because I was used to feeling depressed. I then started to backtrack within my own mind to find root causes of my depression. This is why I referred to my reactive self. All of my anxiety came from a reaction; not from the situation itself. The situation was, in a way, irrelevant.

Client-centered, or person-centered, therapy was established by Carl Rogers in 1940 as an alternative to the existing orientations that relied on guidance or interpretation. Through this non-directive approach to therapy a therapist is able to relay back to the patient what they have expressed so that the patient can identify the changes they would like to make in life. Rogers provided evidence that this process of client self-discovery and actualization occurred in response to the therapist supplying a consistent empathic understanding of the client’s experience, based on the attitude of acceptance and respect.

Cognitive behaviour therapy aims to show people how their thinking affects their mood and to teach them to think in a less negative way about life and themselves. It is based on the understanding that thinking negatively is a habit, and, like any other bad habit, it can be broken.

In a recent study of people at risk for relapse in clinical depression, PhD candidate Alisa Singer found that 40 per cent of them could not apply the concept of mindfulness to their own thinking. Mindfulness is the practice of simply being aware of thoughts and emotions, rather than getting caught up in them or analyzing their meaning. 

“Mindfulness helps people step back and recognize that the negative thoughts they are having on a given issue are simply thoughts and may or may not be true,” Singer says. “By acknowledging and accepting such uncomfortable feelings, our research has found that negative moods will dissipate more quickly.”