http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27592123

In this linked paper, a clinical trial testing a novel therapy for reducing suicide risk in military veterans, namely Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Preventing Suicide Behaviour (MBCT-S), is planned. The ten-week intervention was adapted from an existing treatment for depression, MBCT, which has been gaining massively in popularity for a range of presentations in recent years.

MBCT is rooted in Eastern culture and is characterised by a non-judgemental, purposeful, present-moment awareness as originally described by John Kabat-Zinn in 1990. MBCT is a groups skills training program, usually consisting of eight weekly sessions, which integrates elements of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression into the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training program developed by Kabat-Zinn with others. In MBCT, however, there is little emphasis on changing the content of thoughts; rather, people are taught to recognise that thoughts and feelings are events in the mind and not truths per-se nor aspects of the Self. Such an approach typically de-centres views, leading to new beliefs such as ‘thoughts are not facts’ and ‘I am not my thoughts’. People gradually learn to look ‘at’ thoughts rather than ‘from’ thoughts, thus identifying with the deeper Self beyond these thoughts as opposed to tangling up the thoughts with the sense of who they intrinsically are.

To read the rest of this paper, please visit our blog at https://themindedinstitute.wordpress.com/2016/09/0... . Namaste.