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The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Book & CD) First Edition, Paperback + CD-ROM
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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.
- ISBN-101593851286
- ISBN-13978-1593851286
- EditionFirst Edition, Paperback + CD-ROM
- PublisherThe Guilford Press
- Publication dateJune 2, 2007
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7.99 x 10 x 1.85 inches
- Print length273 pages
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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 CDmost 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 and Real Love
"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, ABPP, Professor and Director Emeritus, Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics, University of Washington; developer of DBT
"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 Published On: 2007-06-04
"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 Published On: 2007-06-04
"The book is well written and easy to read....People who are prone to depression, dysthymia, or general unhappiness will find this a helpful new way to reframe their thinking about their issues, and practitioners may also find it a useful basis for counseling." ― Drug and Alcohol Review Published On: 2007-06-04
"Composed by a star-studded team of scientists and practitioners, this powerful book is the best self-help title to arrive since David Burns's seminal Feeling Good. Williams, Teasdale, and Segal previously collaborated on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, a well-received text for mental health professionals. Add to the mix Jon Kabat-Zinn, a luminary in his own right, and the result is a useful lay reader's guide to incorporating mindfulness techniques in everyday life. Providing a realistic eight-week program, this wonderful guide and its accompanying CD offer invaluable practical strategies for banishing depression and regaining one's life. Highly recommended. (starred review)" ― Library Journal Published On: 2007-06-04
About the Author
Mark Williams, DPhil, is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, having been Wellcome Principal Research Fellow at Oxford from 2003 to 2012 and at Bangor University from 1991 to 2002. He collaborated with John Teasdale and Zindel Segal in developing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to prevent relapse and recurrence in major depression; together, they coauthored Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition (for mental health professionals), as well as the self-help guides The Mindful Way Workbook and (with Jon Kabat-Zinn) The Mindful Way through Depression. Dr. Williams is also coauthor of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy with People at Risk of Suicide (for mental health professionals). He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Academy. Now retired, he continues to live near Oxford, to teach mindfulness to teachers-in-training across the world, and to explore, with colleagues, how mindfulness might be used in evidence-based public policy.
John Teasdale, PhD, held a Special Scientific Appointment with the United Kingdom Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He collaborated with Mark Williams and Zindel Segal in developing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to prevent relapse and recurrence in major depression; together, they coauthored Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition (for mental health professionals), as well as the self-help guides The Mindful Way Workbook and (with Jon Kabat-Zinn) The Mindful Way through Depression. Since retiring, Dr. Teasdale has taught mindfulness and insight meditation internationally. He continues to explore and seek to understand the wider implications of mindfulness and meditation for enhancing our way of being.
Zindel Segal, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto–Scarborough. He is Director of Clinical Training in the Clinical Psychological Science Program and is also Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Segal has conducted influential research into the psychological processes that make certain people more vulnerable than others to developing depression and experiencing recurrent episodes. He actively advocates for the relevance of mindfulness-based clinical care in psychiatry and mental health. He collaborated with John Teasdale and Mark Williams in developing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) to prevent relapse and recurrence in major depression; together, they coauthored Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition (for mental health professionals), as well as the self-help guides The Mindful Way Workbook and (with Jon Kabat-Zinn) The Mindful Way through Depression.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, as well as its world-renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic. Dr. Kabat-Zinn is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and teacher, which has contributed to the growing movement of mindfulness into such mainstream institutions as schools, corporations, prisons, professional sports teams, government, and the legal profession, in addition to its influence in medicine and health care, psychology, and neuroscience. He teaches and conducts mindfulness retreats worldwide.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Mindful Way through Depression
Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
By Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, Jon Kabat-ZinnThe Guilford Press
Copyright © 2007 The Guilford PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59385-128-6
Contents
Acknowledgments,Introduction: Tired of Feeling So Bad for So Long,
PART I Mind, Body, and Emotion,
ONE. "Oh No, Here I Go Again": Why Unhappiness Won't Let Go,
TWO. The Healing Power of Awareness: Making a Shift to Freedom,
PART II Moment by Moment,
THREE. Cultivating Mindfulness: A First Taste,
FOUR. The Breath: Gateway to Awareness,
FIVE. A Different Way of Knowing: Sidestepping the Ruminative Mind,
PART III Transforming Unhappiness,
SIX. Reconnecting with Our Feelings-Those We Like, Those We Don't Like, and Those We Don't Know We Have,
SEVEN. Befriending Our Feelings,
EIGHT. Seeing Thoughts as Creations of the Mind,
NINE. Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Taking a Breathing Space,
PART IV Reclaiming Your Life,
TEN. Fully Alive: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness,
ELEVEN. Bringing It All Together: Weaving the Mindfulness Program into Your Life,
Further Reading, Web Materials, and Retreat Centers,
Notes,
Index,
About the Authors,
About Guilford Publications,
Discover More Guilford Titles,
Online Audio Files of Guided Meditation Practices,
CHAPTER 1
"Oh No, Here I Go Again" Why Unhappiness Won't Let Go
Alice tossed and turned. She couldn't sleep. It was 3:00 in the morning, and she'd awakened with a jolt two hours earlier, her mind instantly buzzing with a rerun of the afternoon meeting with her supervisor. This time, though, there was a commentator. It was her own voice, chiding her with shrill questions:
"Why did I have to put it that way? I sounded like an idiot. What did he mean by 'satisfactory'—okay, but not nearly good enough for a raise? Kristin's department? What do they have to do with the project? That's my territory ... at least for now. Is that what he meant by evaluating how things go? He's planning to put someone else in charge, isn't he? I knew my work wasn't good enough—not for a raise and maybe not even to keep my job. If only I'd seen it coming.... "
Alice couldn't get back to sleep. By the time her alarm went off, her thoughts had moved on, from the hopelessness of her position at work to the dire straits she and the children would be in once she was out looking for a job again. As she wrenched her aching body out of bed and struggled toward the bathroom, she was already picturing herself being rejected by one new prospective employer after another.
"I can't blame them. I just can't understand why I feel so down so often. Why do I get so overwhelmed by everything? Everyone else seems to manage fine. I obviously don't have what it takes to cope with both a job and a home. What was it that he said about me?"
The tape loop in her head started over again.
Jim hadn't had any trouble sleeping. In fact, he just seemed to have a hard time being awake. There he was again, sitting in his car in the office parking lot, feeling the sheer weight of the day pinning him to his seat. His whole body felt leaden. It was all he could do just to unlatch his seat belt. And still he sat, immobile, stuck, unable to grab the door handle and just go to work.
Maybe if he mentally ran through his schedule for the day ... that always got him moving, started the ball rolling. But not today. Every appointment, every meeting, each phone call he had to return made him swallow what felt like an iron ball, and, with each swallow, his mind wandered away from the day's agenda to the nagging question that seemed to be with him every morning:
"Why do I feel so bad? I've got everything most men could ask for—a loving wife, great kids, a secure job, a nice house.... What's wrong with me? Why can't I pull myself together? And why is it always this way? Wendy and the kids are sick to death of my feeling sorry for myself. They are not going to be able to put up with me much longer. If I could figure it out, things would be different. If I knew why I felt so rotten, I know I could solve the problem and just get on with life like everyone else. This is really stupid."
Alice and Jim just want to be happy. Alice will tell you she's had good times in her life. But they never seem to last. Something sends her into a tailspin, and events she would have shaken off when younger now seem to plunge her into despair before she knows what's hit her. Jim says he's had good times too—but he tends to describe them as periods marked more by the absence of pain than by the presence of joy. He has no idea what makes the dull ache recede or return. All he knows is that he can't put his finger on the last time he spent an evening laughing and joking with family or friends.
As visions of being unemployed swirl through Alice's head, a deep fear of being unable to do what she needs to do for herself and her kids lurks around the edges of her mind. Not again, she thinks with a sigh. She remembers well what happened when she found out that Burt had been cheating on her and she kicked him out of the house. Naturally, Alice had felt sad and angry, but also humiliated by the way he had treated her. He had been unfaithful. She had wound up feeling that she had "lost" her battle to save the relationship. Then she felt trapped by her circumstances as a single mother. At first she had put up a good front for the sake of the children. Everyone was supportive, but there came a point when she thought that she should be over it by now. She couldn't continue to ask for help from family and friends. Four months later, she found herself feeling more and more tearful and depressed, losing interest in the children's choir she directed, unable to concentrate at work, and feeling guilty about what a "bad mother" she was. She couldn't sleep, she was eating "constantly," and eventually she went to her family physician, who diagnosed depression.
Alice's doctor prescribed an antidepressant, which made a big improvement in her mood. Within a couple of months she was back to her normal self—until nine months later, when she totaled her new car in an accident. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd narrowly escaped death, even though she'd walked away with just a few bruises. She found herself repeatedly reviewing the accident, asking herself how she could possibly have been so reckless, how she could have exposed herself to a risk that might have robbed her kids of the only real parent they now had. As the dark thoughts got louder, she called her doctor for another prescription, and soon she felt better again. This pattern repeated itself a few more times over the next five years. Every time she noticed the signs of being pulled down into the vortex again, she felt increasing dread. Alice wasn't sure she could take it anymore.
Jim had never been diagnosed with depression—he had never even talked to his doctor about his bleak frame of mind or his persistently low moods. He was surviving, and everything in his life was fine; what right did he have to complain about it to anyone? He would just sit there in his car until something came to him that would move him to open that door and get going. He tried thinking about his garden and all the beautiful new tulips that would be sprouting up soon, but that just reminded him that he hadn't really done the fall cleanup adequately and he'd have a lot to do to get the yard ready now, a thought that exhausted him. He thought about his kids and his wife, but the idea of trying to participate in dinner conversation that night just made him want to go to bed early, as he had last night. He had planned to get up early to finish what he'd left on his desk yesterday, but he just couldn't seem to wake up. Maybe he would just stay at the office till he finished the thing once and for all, even if he had to be there till midnight....
Alice has recurrent major depressive disorder. Jim may suffer from dysthymia, a sort of low-grade depression that is more a chronic state than an acute condition. The diagnosis doesn't matter that much. The problem for Alice and Jim and many of the rest of us is that we want desperately to be happy but have no idea how to get there. Why do some of us end up feeling so low over and over? Why do some of us feel as if we're never really happy but just dragging ourselves through life, chronically down and discontented, tired and listless, with little interest in the things that used to give us pleasure and make life worthwhile?
For most of us, depression starts as a reaction to a tragedy or reversal in life. The events that are particularly likely to produce depression are losses, humiliations, and defeats that leave us feeling trapped by our circumstances. Alice became depressed following the loss of her long-term relationship with Burt. At first she was fueled by righteous indignation and tackled single-parenthood with a vengeance. But it was all she could do to take care of things on the home front when she returned from work at night, so she gave up post-work get-togethers with friends, dinner with her mother, and even phone calls to her sister in a nearby state. Soon she felt weighed down by loneliness, crushed by a constant sense of abandonment.
For Jim, the loss was a little more subtle and a lot less visible to the outside world. A few months after he received a promotion at his consulting firm, Jim found he no longer had time to spend with friends and had to drop out of his gardening club because he was staying later and later at the office. He also realized he didn't actually enjoy his new supervisory role. Eventually he asked to return to a job similar to the one he had done before. The change was a relief, and no one knew Jim wasn't happy—not even Jim at first. But he started getting spacey and seemed often distracted. In his head, Jim was second-guessing his decision, overanalyzing every brief interaction with his bosses, and ultimately chiding himself over and over for having "failed" his company and himself. He said nothing and tried to ignore these thoughts, but over the next five years he withdrew more and more, had a lot of minor health complaints, and, in the words of his wife, "just wasn't the man I used to know."
Loss is an unavoidable part of the human condition. Most of us find life an enormous struggle after the sort of crisis that Alice went through, and many of us feel diminished by disappointments in ourselves or others, as Jim did. But embedded in Alice's and Jim's stories are clues to why only some of us suffer lasting effects from such difficult experiences.
WHEN UNHAPPINESS TURNS INTO DEPRESSION ... AND DEPRESSION WON'T GO AWAY
Depression is a huge burden affecting millions today and becoming more common in Western countries, as well as in developing countries that are "Westernizing" their economies. Forty years ago depression struck people first, on average, in their 40s and 50s; today it's their mid-20s. Other statistics in the box on page 16 show the scope of the problem today, but none may be more alarming than the data showing that depression tends to return. At least fifty percent of those experiencing depression find that it comes back, despite the fact that they appeared to have made a full recovery. After a second or third episode, the risk of recurrence rises to between eighty and ninety percent. People who first became depressed before they were twenty years of age are at particularly high risk for becoming depressed again. What's going on here? As psychologists who had been involved in treating and researching depression for many years, three of us (Mark Williams, Zindel Segal, and John Teasdale) wanted to find out. The rest of this chapter, plus Chapter 2, explains what science has learned about the nature of depression and unhappiness and how that knowledge, once we banded together with our fourth author (Jon Kabat-Zinn), ultimately produced the treatment on which this book is based.
One of the most critical facts we learned was that there is a difference between those of us who have experienced an episode of depression and those who have not: depression forges a connection in the brain between sad mood and negative thoughts, so that even normal sadness can reawaken major negative thoughts. This insight added a new dimension to our understanding of how depression works. Decades ago pioneering scientists like Aaron Beck had the insight that negative thoughts play a leading role in depression. Beck and his colleagues made a huge leap in our understanding of depression when they found that mood was strongly shaped by thoughts—that it wasn't necessarily events themselves that drove our emotions but our beliefs about or interpretations of those events. Now we know there is much more to the story. Not only can thoughts affect mood, but in those of us who get depressed, mood can affect thoughts in ways that can then make an already low mood even lower. It doesn't require a traumatic loss for those of us who are vulnerable to plunge down into the spiral again; even the kinds of everyday difficulties that many people shrug off can start the descent into depression or perpetuate unhappiness from day to day. Even more, as we'll see, this connection becomes so ingrained that sometimes the negative thoughts that lead to depression can be triggered by sadness so fleeting or minimal that the person experiencing it is hardly aware of it.
No wonder so many of us feel we can't pull ourselves out of the abyss, no matter how hard we try. We have no idea where the descent began.
Unfortunately, our valiant efforts to figure out how we got where we are turn out to be part of a complicated mechanism by which we get dragged down even farther. The way in which our efforts to understand ourselves can lead to additional problems instead of solutions is a complex story. It starts with a fundamental knowledge of the anatomy of depression and of its four key dimensions: feelings, thoughts, body sensations, and behaviors, through which we respond to the events of life. Key to this understanding is how these different dimensions interact.
THE ANATOMY OF DEPRESSION
Let's look briefly at the development of the whole pattern of depression before we get into its individual elements.
When we become deeply unhappy or depressed, an avalanche of feelings, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors comes into play, as revealed in the checklist of the hallmark symptoms of major depression (see box, p. 19). The huge emotional upheaval that can come from experiencing loss, separation, rejection, or any reversal that brings a sense of humiliation or defeat is normal. Disturbing emotions are an important part of life. They signal to us and to others that we are severely distressed, that something untoward has happened in our lives. But sadness can give way to depression when the sadness turns into endemically harsh negative thoughts and feelings. This morass of negative thinking then generates tension, aches, pains, fatigue, and turmoil. These, in turn, feed more negative thinking; the depression gets worse and worse and, with it, the hurt. We only compound our feelings of depletion if we deal with them by giving up activities that normally nourish us, like getting together with friends and family who might be a real support for us. Our exhaustion is compounded if we deal with it by simply working harder.
It's not difficult to see how feelings, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors are all part of depression. Earlier in this chapter we described the aches that Alice felt after a night of berating herself, the "iron ball" that Jim felt like he had to keep swallowing when he thought about what his day held in store. As many of us are only too aware, being "down" can make it hard to do much of anything or to make choices that get us where we want to go. What's harder to see is how any one part of this anatomy can trigger the downward spiral and then how each component feeds into and reinforces the others. By this process the state of mind that keeps us unhappy or leaves us vulnerable to depression gets stronger and stronger. A closer look at the parts at this point may help us see the whole more clearly.
Feelings
If you think back to the last time you began to feel unhappy and describe your feelings, many different words might come to mind: sad, blue, downhearted, miserable, despondent, low, feeling sorry for yourself. The strength of such feelings can vary; for example, we can feel anywhere from slightly sad to extremely sad. It's normal for emotions to come and go, but it is rare for such depressive feelings to occur by themselves. They often cluster with anxiety and fear, anger and irritability, hopelessness and despair. Irritability is a particularly common symptom of depression; when down, we may feel impatient, at the end of our rope with many of the people in our lives. We may be more prone than usual to angry outbursts. For some, especially young people, irritability is a more prominent experience than sadness in depression.
* * *
The feelings by which we generally define depression are usually thought of as an end point. We're depressed; we feel sad, low, blue, miserable, despondent, desperate. But they're also a starting point: research has shown that the more we've been depressed in the past, the more sad mood will also bring with it feelings of low self-esteem and self-blame. Not only do we feel sad, we may also feel like failures, useless, unlovable, losers. These feelings trigger powerful self-critical thoughts: we turn on ourselves, perhaps berating ourselves for the emotion we are experiencing: This is dumb, why can't I just get over this and move on? And, of course, thinking this way just drags us down further.
(Continues...)Excerpted from The Mindful Way through Depression by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, Jon Kabat-Zinn. Copyright © 2007 The Guilford Press. Excerpted by permission of The Guilford Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : The Guilford Press; First Edition, Paperback + CD-ROM (June 2, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 273 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1593851286
- ISBN-13 : 978-1593851286
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.99 x 10 x 1.85 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #37,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #58 in Depression (Books)
- #224 in Meditation (Books)
- #404 in Unknown
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About the authors

Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. He is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of numerous books, including Full Catastrophe Living, Arriving at Your Own Door, and Coming to Our Senses.

Zindel Segal, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto Scarborough and a co-developer of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. He continues to advocate for mindfulness-based clinical care in psychiatry and mental health..

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.

I am Professor Emeritus in Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford. (I also publish as J Mark G Williams.) I have held previous posts in the Medical Research Council in Cambridge and the University of Wales, Bangor. My research aims to understand how to prevent recurrent depression, and how to decrease risk of suicidal behaviour in depression. With colleagues John Teasdale (Cambridge) and Zindel Segal (Toronto) and the support of Jon Kabat-Zinn (Center for Mindfulness, UMass) we developed Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for prevention of relapse and recurrence in depression. Research has now found that MBCT significantly reduces risk of future depression in those who have suffered three or more previous episodes. In Great Britain, the UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), working on behalf the National Health Service, has recommended MBCT as a primary treatment for prevention relapse in depression.
My previous books include Cry of Pain: understanding suicide and self harm (Penguin, 1997, 2002; Piatkus 2014) and with Z. Segal and J.D. Teasdale, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression (Guilford, 2002, 2013) and The Mindful Way Workbook (Guilford, 2013), and Mindfulness -based Cognitive Therapy with People at Risk of Suicide (with Melanie Fennell, Thorsten Barnhofer, Sarah Silverton and Rebecca Crane; Guilford, 2015)
The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Guilford, 2007; co-authored with John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn) is written for a lay-readership, and includes a CD narrated by Jon Kabat-Zinn so that readers may try mindfulness practice for themselves.
Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (Piatkus, 2011, co-authored with Danny Penman) extends MBCT to those who find themselves over-busy, stressed and exhausted; who feel that life is running away from them. It includes a free CD of short meditations that anyone can use to enhance their quality of life.
Our most recent book, Deeper Mindfulness (Piatkus, 2023) reveals how the latest advances in neuroscience, combined with millennia old wisdom, can be harnessed to transform your life. These discoveries open the doors to a deeper layer of mindfulness known as the ‘feeling tone’. This sets the ‘background colour’ that guides your thoughts, feelings and emotions. It is also the tipping point from which you can reclaim your life in an increasingly stressful and chaotic world. Proven effective at treating anxiety, stress and depression, the downloadable practices in Deeper Mindfulness offer a new and more fruitful direction for both novice and experienced meditators. It also allows the rest of us to approach life with renewed strength, vigour and equanimity.
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I have been an evangelist for this book since I started reading it. I preface my sharing with "disregard the word depression in the title, this book is a fantastic book for anyone". By practicing what the authors have outlined in this book you can experience deeper and deeper levels of joy, satisfaction and success in your life. That is my claim, not theirs.
This book is about becoming conscious of ourselves - thoughts, feelings, memories we are experiencing in the moment. As we become more and more conscious we have more choice. We can choose to continue to dwell on something that adds no value to our lives or we can choose to focus on what we want and what we can appreciate in this moment.
Why do I see this book as so powerful?
1) It provides the reader with a reference point. The authors give great guidance for stepping back to see what you are experiencing as something separate from who you are. Instead of being your feelings, your thoughts or your members, it helps you see yourself as separate, as the observer. Through the practice of noticing and becoming conscious that you are experiencing a feeling you can begin to see the feeling is separate from that part of you that is doing the noticing. Seeing our feelings as separate from who we are can be challenging, especially when the feelings are all consuming. I understand this very well from personal experience.
2) They also help you see you have choice in how/when/where you want to experience that feeling. You as the observer of your internal world can choose when you will experience your thoughts, feelings and memories. It may not feel that way at times. The authors give you an approach to practice becoming the observer and through that practice you can learn to see yourself as the observer that chooses what you will focus on at any given moment.
3) The authors approach provides easy to learn and practice concepts - they are based on things readily available to you, such as your breath. You can practice the methods they suggest in most if not all context (e.g., I can pay attention to my breath whenever and wherever I am).
I found this to be a great book. I hope you enjoy it!
An example of what I learned...
I learned through reading their book that I tried to avoid feeling certain feelings. I found that I had fear of feeling fear, so I tried to hold fear at bay which created anxiety for me. The fear feelings was their and I created a tension by trying to deny the feeling was there. You might look at yourself. Are their feelings you have that you avoid feeling? Why? What if you chose to feel that feeling for a moment or several minutes while still holding the feeling as separate from you the observer?
Over the past thirty years, I've done three 10-day residential Vipassana courses. Over the past six months or so, I've tried to make formal practice a non-negotiable part of my daily life, usually sitting for an hour each day. I am amazed at how accurately, clearly and simply this book discusses the issues that every meditator experiences, particularly dealing with distractions and dealing with the expectations and hopes that one has about meditation (the latter is a sub-set of the former, as anyone with any experience of meditation knows!).
I'm curious to know how a reader with NO previous experience of meditation would find this book. While it's a very practical guide, I'm not sure that most of us would be able to read the book and then apply the methods, without any other guidance. Our minds are tricky beasts, I have a feeling that most of us would not be able to stick the course without a teacher, even with the audio files.
The other interesting thing is that while the authors of this book have presented the teachings in it as a tool for dealing with depression, it really has validity for ALL people dealing with entrenched though patterns and fixed, transparent beliefs -- which is, indeed, ALL people. I suspect that the authors are fully aware of this, but for the methodology to gain acceptance amongst the profession of psychology, it must be seen to address a recognized condition. If studies were done that showed that mindfulness meditation merely made normal people happier and more aware of themselves, the profession would merely raise an arch eyebrow. However, the profession recognizes depression as a real and serious condition, so it HAS to pay attention if a well designed study shows that mindfulness meditation has an impact on it.
Having said that, I have seen from my own experience that mindfulness meditation DOES have an impact on depression. Like many other people who experience clinical depression, I sometimes wake up very early in the morning, unrested, after only a few hours sleep. In the past, I used to lie there and feel terrible about not being able to sleep, dreading the coming day that I'd have to face tired and exhausted, trying to force myself to sleep. A few weeks ago, if I did experience the early awakenings, I got up to do half an hour of sitting and paying attention to the breath. Almost invariably, the feeling of dread and unhappiness lifted. I still felt tired throughout the day, sometimes I needed a nap -- but even so, I felt a lot better for sitting.
Just to reiterate: I think this is a brilliantly written, clear, concise and useful guide to meditation.
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I mean that literally, I just finished reading the book and I’m making a schedule for the next 8 weeks to do the exercises in the book, in the recommended order, with the recommended focus. For the first time in a really long time, I’m somewhat optimistic about my life. That feeling was missing from my life for the past 17 years. I’m not trying to change myself anymore, but I want to experience more of this ‘being state’. That in itself has been such a comfort to me, just experiencing self-acceptance for a short while. Let’s see if that pops up again during the 8 week program; it would be a welcome visitor :)
マインドフルネスの基本の知識が載っており、まずこの本を読んでおくことは必須だと思われます。
添付のCDも使いやすく、良かった。iphoneにダウンロードして外出先で聞いています。
















