Who benefits from MBSR courses?
Assessment
Mindfulness in health
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For health professionals

Who benefits from MBSR courses?

People come to the Stress Reduction Program for the following reasons:

• Preventive
These participants are self-referred or referred through word-of-mouth because they want to establish a way of living which is sustainable and more line with their values and what they want to achieve in life. They are interested in building on strengths, cultivating more emotional and physical resilience and to develop better relationships.

• Psychological/Psychiatric
People come with mild to moderate conditions with common diagnosis being: depression, anxiety, panic disorder, or adjustment disorder.

• Medical Diagnosis/Stress Related Diagnosis
People come for help with physical illnesses and psychosomatic complaints exacerbated by insufficient coping skills. Some conditions include: gastrointestinal problems, headaches, and hypertension, muscular-skeletal problems.

• Medical Diagnosis/Acute or Chronic
Some people are seeking management of symptoms arising out of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, chronic pain and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Assessment

Each participant has a phone interview with the teacher of their course in which they can raise any issues or special needs regarding attendance at the course or the home practice demands.

People who have been grappling with drug dependency, psychiatric issues or intense trauma experience, are invited to speak with the Co-ordinator. She will refer the person to the Clinical Director/teacher to assess whether the course is right for that person or what other supports a person may require in order to get the most out of the program. If required, a special assessment interview will be scheduled with the teacher of the course.

MBSR in the health context

Over the last 30 the Western scientific community has been increasingly interested in examining “mindfulness” - a construct derived largely from Buddhist and other contemplative traditions. Across the fields of psychology and medicine, mindfulness has come to be defined in many ways such as a state, a psychological process, a collection of methods, a technique and an outcome (Hayes & Wilson, 2003). Perhaps the most cited definition of mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p.145).

Research on mindfulness has proliferated since its initiation in the 1970’s (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Since this time research has demonstrated that mindfulness enhances psychological, physical and behavioural functioning (Brown et al., 2003) and is associated with a range of well-being outcomes such as reduced stress (Speca, Carlson, Goddy & Angen, 2000), anxiety and depression (Kabat-Zinn, Massion, Kristeller, Peterson, Fletcher, Pbert, 1992; Astin, 1997; Williams, Kolar, Reger & Pearson, 2001) as well as increased mental clarity and psychological health (Reibel, Greenson, Brainard, Rosenzweig, 2001).

Intensive mindfulness training has been systematised for use in heterogeneous groups in the health context by Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts’s Medical Centre for outpatients (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). Other programs have grown out of Kabat-Zinn’s work and are now being offered for specific client groups as well as heterogenous groups ((MBCT and MiCBT).

In these adult education therapeutic programs, people are given experiential training in mindfulness over a period of eight weeks, 2.5 hours a week (plus one full day in MBSR). They engage in formal practices (yoga, body scan, breath and walking meditations) as well as informal practice - where attention is brought in sustained way to ordinary life activities during the day. There is strong emphasis on home meditation practice - up to one hour per day and CDs are provided as guidance for this home practice. Specific information about stress physiology, self-regulation, cognitive behavioural strategies, the nature of thoughts and feelings, interpersonal communication is given over the eight weeks.

Please see Research page for more information.