What is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)?
MBCT is a type of psychotherapy that incorporates mindfulness practices with cognitive therapy. You may have heard of cognitive therapy before, which is a type of therapy that involves identifying dysfunctional thoughts and learning how to choose different thoughts instead (cognitive restructuring).
Whereas, mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Mindfulness is wildly used to help calm a person who is experiencing stress, fear, anxiety, or strong emotions.
Mindfulness and cognitive therapy are extremely effective when combined from a brain perspective. This is because in order for a client to be able to identify and change thoughts, their prefrontal cortex must be activated in the brain. The frontal lobe containing the prefrontal cortex is responsible for planning, organization, logical thinking, reasoning, and managing emotions. However, if a client is often in fight or flight or feels stressed or afraid, their amygdala is activated in the brain leading to their prefrontal cortex being “shut down.” In order for any type of cognitive therapy to work, a client must be able to find a way to calm their body and mind to activate the logical or rational parts of the brain.
Mindfulness is also helpful from an autonomic nervous system perspective which is made up of the 1) sympathetic nervous system, which helps manage stressful events and contains the fight or flight response and 2) parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body rest and replenish. A client is going to be much more receptive to a cognitive therapy when their parasympathetic nervous system is driving the bus!
All in all, mindfulness helps to calm the body and mind and anchor into the present moment. In order to identify and change thoughts, you must be calm. Calmness leads to an activation of the parasympathetic nervous system and allows the prefrontal cortex in the brain to be utilized leading to better decision making and rational thinking. Clients are going to heal so much more rapidly with MBCT versus a traditional cognitive therapy for these reasons.
What does MBCT treat?
- Hypervigilance (overactive sympathetic nervous system)
- Chronic stress
- Overactive fight/flight/freeze response
- Negative thinking patterns/negative beliefs
- Trauma/PTSD
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Attention disorders
- Substance abuse
- Mood disorders
- Anger
- Behavioral problems
- Chronic health problems related to a mental health concern (headaches, nausea, aches and pains)
- Problems with motivation and initiative
- Poor academic performance
- Poor work performance
What are the typical results of MBCT treatment?
- Increased focus
- Able to identify emotions in relation to body sensations
- Increased mindfulness
- Increased self-compassion
- A sense of calm
- Ability to manage strong emotions
- Resiliency (ability to bounce back after adversity)
- Improved physical health
- Decreased anxiety/panic
- Decreased depression/rumination
- Decreased anger/impulsivity
- Better performance at school/work
- Less mistakes at school/work
BEGIN TODAY
You’ve made it this far. All that’s left to do is book your first appointment!