Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an 8-week group course recommended in national health guidelines for people who suffer from or have suffered from depression in the past.
Weekly sessions are 2 hours and delivered online. They involve mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy exercises to support you to become more aware of your mind and body and begin to dissolve some less helpful habits of thinking, such as rumination, worry and self-criticism.
Over the past 15 years MBCT has become increasingly available within health services as the advantages of using this approach have become more established.
Its popularity has increased as people are drawn to the central message of MBCT; that our lives are immeasurably impoverished by our habitual tendency to be on ‘automatic pilot’, during which the richness of momentary experience passes unnoticed. MBCT helps us develop an alternative way of being with experience as we learn skills to more fully engage with our present experience, to be ‘in the moment’.
MBCT courses are delivered online in collaboration with the Nottingham Centre for Mindfulness, located within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), who have been providing MBCT to people accessing their clinical services since 2007. Their mindfulness teachers offer this intervention in a wide range of clinical settings.
On this course, you’ll learn:
- To better understand the patterns of recurrent depression.
- How to ‘stabilise attention’: to recognise mind wandering and ‘autopilot’, and how to bring attention back to where we want it to be – with interest, patience, and care.
- Two different ways of being (through direct experience) and knowing (through thinking).
- More about how the mind creates meaning.
- To recognise our patterns of reactivity and how trying to get rid of distress may actually keep us stuck.
- To bring a sense of care and kindness to ourselves in those moments of distress and reactivity.
- To use mindfulness to respond skilfully, not react – in ways that support the well-being of ourselves and of others around us.
- To ‘step back’ a little from our direct experience so that we can see it more clearly, and so choose a kinder response.
- To build what we have learnt into our everyday lives
You may be interested in the article “How does mindfulness help reduce downward mood spirals?” published on MBCT.com
What to expect on this course
This is a structured course where each session builds upon what has been introduced before, so it’s important to attend all of the sessions. Each session lasts 2 hours.
You’ll be in a group, led by one of the Nottingham Centre for Mindfulness’ clinical team
Each session has guided and structured meditation practices and exercises which are followed by a review of what you and/or other participants experienced or discovered. It’s a review of the practice or exercise rather than a discussion of participants’ past history.
Sessions include suggestions for personal practice of up to 45 minutes – both recommended guided practices, and also ways to cultivate new habits of mindfulness in everyday life. There’ll be space to review the previous week’s personal practice in the following session.
You’ll have access to resources which gives you guided practices and written material to support your learning.
Course dates
Sessions for this course run from 09:30-11:30 UK Time on the following dates:
• Session 1: 31 October 2024
• Session 2: 07 November 2024
• Session 3: 14 November 2024
• Session 4: 21 November 2024
• Session 5: 28 November 2024
• Session 6: 05 December 2024
• Session 7: 12 December 2024
• Session 8: 19 December 2024
What you can do after this course
Once you’ve completed the MBCT course, you may choose to explore mindfulness further through our 8-week Deeper Mindfulness, or our 12-session Taking it Further course.
You might also want to join our live online meditations sessions to maintain your practice or one of our day retreats (Day of Practice).
Entry criteria – who can apply for this course?
You can apply for this course if you:
- Live in the UK and are registered with a GP.
- Agree to the team at Nottingham Mindfulness NHS contacting your GP.
- Agree to complete additional mental health questionnaires provided by the Nottingham Mindfulness Team.
- Have a history of depression, or are currently experiencing an episode of mild-moderate low mood.
- Are not currently under the care of secondary care/specialist mental health services, e.g. referred by a GP psychological wellbeing services, community mental health teams (CMHTs), or other services.
- Are over 18 years of age.
- Can commit to attending all 8 sessions of the programme.
- Have both the time and motivation to dedicate up to 45 minutes of personal practice each day.
- Have access to suitable technology (laptop/PC rather than mobile phone), a strong and stable internet connection, a private space and the technical ability to join an online training programme via Zoom with your camera on.
- Are able to speak and understand English (both spoken and written) to a level where you can fully take part in the course without the need for additional translation support.
This course is not suitable for you if you:
- Currently have severe depression: high levels of depression can make engaging in mindfulness and CBT exercises difficult.
- Are having suicidal thoughts or urges: mindfulness meditation can be difficult in these circumstances.
- Are experiencing a recent significant life event or stress that is causing considerable distress.
If any of the above apply, please contact your GP or mental health support team.