The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness [Paperback]

Mark Williams (Author), John Teasdale (Author), Zindel Segal (Author), Jon Kabat-Zinn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2007

If you’ve ever struggled with depression, take heart. Mindfulness, a simple yet powerful way of paying attention to your most difficult emotions and life experiences, can help you break the cycle of chronic unhappiness once and for all.

In The Mindful Way through Depression, four uniquely qualified experts explain why our usual attempts to “think” our way out of a bad mood or just “snap out of it” lead us deeper into the downward spiral. Through insightful lessons drawn from both Eastern meditative traditions and cognitive therapy, they demonstrate how to sidestep the mental habits that lead to despair, including rumination and self-blame, so you can face life’s challenges with greater resilience. Jon Kabat-Zinn gently and encouragingly narrates the accompanying CD of guided meditations, making this a complete package for anyone seeking to regain a sense of hope and well-being.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Using mindfulness training to prevent and treat depression is a novel strategy in the West, though it is a traditional application of Eastern meditation practice. Whether you struggle with depression or simply want to understand your mind and emotions better, you will find this book accessible and useful. Depression is epidemic in our society, and I would love to see this sensible treatment approach gain ground." –Andrew Weil, MD, author of 8 Weeks to Optimum Health and Healthy Aging

 

"A revolutionary treatment approach. For depression sufferers, this is a truly useful guide to achieving emotional balance. For mental health professionals, it should be mandatory reading. I recommend this book and companion CD most highly." –Daniel Goleman, PhD, author of Emotional Intelligence

 

"An invaluable resource not only for those who suffer from depression, but for anyone familiar with the downward spiral of negative thinking and self-doubt. The authors of this book explore the reasons for depression and give us guidance and support, along with useful tools to find a way through it." --Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

 

"If I could select one group of individuals for people to really pay attention to when grappling with chronic unhappiness, I could not think of a better group than these authors. Not only are they consummate scientists, but they are each personally immersed in the moment-to-moment mindfulness that they teach. This book brings together the practices of both science and insight meditation in an effective fashion that is understandable to the ordinary person--no esoteric practice or mental health background is necessary. Read it and see for yourself!" –Marsha M. Linehan, PhD, University of Washington

 

–

"An invaluable resource for patients who suffer with depression. In addition to psychotherapy, psychopharmacology and CBT, it provides another resource to patients and another way of looking at their struggle, a way of trying to understand what''s happening and a way to learn a technique of self-help; a way of attempting to break through a cycle of chronic unhappiness. The book is accompanied by a CD with a series of guided meditations, making it a unique and useful package for the clinician to use in a comprehensive treatment program....A book of this sort is invaluable in that it provides a series of take-home exercises for the novice and provides a step-by-step guide to patients or clinicians interested in effective noninvasive therapeutic techniques."--Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

(Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic )

"Williams and his international team of authors provide insight into the healing power of so-called ''awareness'' through which people can escape the wearisome ruminations of the obsessed mind, befriend alien feelings, and come more alive in themselves. The book is accompanied by a CD with meditations that can help the listener enter the present moment, own more fully their physical context, and stand back from the flow of their thinking and feeling....A practical volume that bears the authority both of contemporary psychology and the age old spiritual practice of meditation."--New Directions

(New Directions )

About the Author

Mark Williams, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at University of Oxford, United Kingdom. With Drs. Segal and Teasdale, he authored Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, a bestselling book for professionals.

 

John Teasdale, PhD, has held senior research appointments in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, and in the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

 

Zindel Segal, PhD, is the Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherapy at the University of Toronto and Head of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Unit at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is internationally known for his work as a bestselling author, scientist, and meditation teacher. He is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Product Details

• Paperback: 273 pages
• Publisher: The Guilford Press; First Printing edition (June 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593851286
• ISBN-13: 978-1593851286
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Aging > Depression
  • #39 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health
  • #84 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

292 of 300 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you ever get depressed or get caught up in negative thinking, , you need to read this!, January 10, 2008

By 

KV Trout (Centerville, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Paperback)

This is truly an excellent method of working to accept and overcome the problems of depression.

I have read some of the classic books on depression and cognitive therapy such as David Burns' "Feeling Good", and this is a much more comprehensive approach, based on the principles of cognitive therapy but with the addition of mindfulness.

This approach is also good for people who aren't really clinically depressed but who get caught up in negative thinking patterns and low self esteem: "Why me?" "I'm a loser", "I'll never get ahead", etc...

The book has a great cd with it to teach you exactly how to practice the mindfulness exercises. I hesitate to use the term meditation because people tend to start thinking things like "I can't meditate", "It's too hard", etc... By the time you read the book, you will understand that meditation is not hard at all, it's just a matter of doing it, and it can be done in as little as 3-5 minutes and still be worthwhile. It's not a matter of "contemplating your navel" but rather just learning to BE in the present moment, to watch one's thoughts arise and fall away, to slow down, to look at what is happening in one's body and in one's mind. Nothing at all difficult about it. You can do it. And you will find it worthwhile if you do it for a few weeks.

I highly recommend this book to people suffering from depression.

Another very good book for certain types of depression and anxiety that I highly recommend is "Emotional Blackmail" by Susan Forward, which helped me a great deal.

One more book I will recommend not so much specifically for depression but because it teaches the value and technique of "mindfulness", is Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Wherever You Go, There You Are".

The last thing I will say is that just reading any of these books is not enough! You MUST do the exercises and put mindfulness into practice! You will be glad you did!

335 of 350 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mindful Way through Depression, September 3, 2007

By 

Gary G. Miles "slow reader" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book. I have suffered from depressed for a long time, and I am always looking for new ways to cope with my depression. I found this book to be most helpful in describing useful techniques to deal with my depression. The book is written in very layman language and is easily understandable. To my knowledge the four professionals who wrote this book collaborated their ideas, and came up with a scheme that was relatively easy to follow. I take anti-depressant medications that enable me to get up to "base line", but after that, if I do not have some way of facing every day problems, I find myself in the dump of depression again.

This book helps me to stay up, and not slip back too far into depression. Medications are very helpful, but by themselves, they can not keep one at base line (or what some people call "normal.") Once we reach base line, we depressed persons, need help in staying at that level. The teachings of this book definitely has helped me in this endeavor.

I do not say this book totally cured me of depression (I don't think anything ever will.) However, the information in the book has been a big help to me, and I can cope with depression much better than I did before I read the book.

168 of 175 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking approach, October 9, 2007

By 

David Fahrland "Bald Eagle" (Northeastern Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Paperback)

This is a ground-breaking method in the treatment of depression by combining C.B.T. with Buddhist mindfulness practice. The descriptions and exercises for meditating have helped me to overcome my resistance(s) to practice. I also have discovered "moving meditation" that can be done with walking, swimming, whatever to reach a result that is even more enlightening than classic sitting meditation practice.

I also realize from my past deep depressions that any practice seems hard because it is extremely difficult to overcome "inertia" and cut through the cognitive "fog" symptoms that accompany the disease. Hopefully, the moving meditation practice and some simple cognitive practices described here could be effective even under the duress of a full blown relapse.

This book is also very well written and clearly readable.