The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Book & CD) Paperback + CD-ROM Edition
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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.
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From the Publisher
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 V. 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.
Product details
- Publisher : The Guilford Press; Paperback + CD-ROM edition (June 2, 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 273 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1593851286
- ISBN-13 : 978-1593851286
- Item Weight : 11.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.75 x 8.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #76,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #58 in Psychology (Books)
- #125 in Depression (Books)
- #798 in Meditation (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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.

COVID-19
I have posted some new meditations on www.mbct.co.uk that might help you to find a sense of grounding and stability in the midst everything that's happening right now.
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I am Emeritus Professor of 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. I am a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Academy.
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) I co-developed Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for prevention of relapse and recurrence in depression, and research has now found that MBCT significantly reduces recurrence in those who have suffered three or more previous episodes of major depression. 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 The Psychological Treatment of Depression (Routledge, 1984, 1992), Cognitive Psychology and Emotional Disorders (Wiley, 1988, 1997; with F. Watts, C. MacLeod & A. Mathews), 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). The research conducted at Oxford between 2003 and 2013 is summarised in the book 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 (London, 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.

Zindel Segal, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto Scarborough and a Senior Scientist in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He has advocated for mindfulness-based clinical care in psychiatry and mental health for over 2 decades.

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.
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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.
Top reviews from other countries
I think that the title might put people off, but I personally believe it is a fantastic mindfulness guide that's suitable for anyone (not just people that have issues with depression). It explains the practices and why you should do them extremely well.
I think to get the most out of the book you really need to practice, practice, practice. Don't skip any exercise, read it slowly (it took me almost a year) and stick with it!
It is a book you can pick up and go back to when needed. Cd added bonis
What if you aren't suffering from depression? - I feel the book covers a wide range of emotional experiences including low self esteem and can even help with anxiety issues. It looks at our tendencies as individuals to always focus upon the negative, how we end up self criticising and how, if we are prone to low mood and depression, this inner critic can take control, making us feel worse about ourselves.
It looks at how depression can impact on our sleeping habits, eating habits and can lead to persistent feelings of exhaustion and low level aches and pains. I also feel that anxiety and low self esteem can impact in similar ways affecting our desires to connect with our friends and the people close to us, affecting our feelings about going out and socialising and impacting upon our working lives.
The book comes with a simple premise - if we pay attention to the present moment, not looking back on the past or speculating about the future then the `cycle of unhappiness' can be broken. It sounds almost too good to be true - but the book teaches how it is possible to refocus attention on the here and now with simple instructions and explanations. I use the meditation CD often and it has made a big impact with people I have worked with who are suffering from anxiety, depression and low self esteem.
The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (includes Guided Meditation Practices CD)








