MBCT For Depression Chap 3 Flashcards
What did they notice about the instructors at Massachusetts?
They were able to embody a different relationship to the intense distress and emotion in their patients. Through there own mindfulness practice.
What are the two ways that participants in a program learn about mindfulness?
Through their own practice and through the way the instructor deals with issues in the class (embodies mindfulness).
MBSR teaches people to form a different relationship with what?
Not only 1thoughts but 2feelings, 3body sensations and 4impulses to act.
What the rather imprecise decentering of ‘stepping away from’, ignoring, dissociation replaced with in the the MBSR approach.
Welcoming and allowing (maitri). Broadening to body feelings and impulses allows this welcoming to happen. Focussing on thoughts only offered a restricted view of how to deal with neg feelings and sensations. Gives more ‘ways in’ to difficult experiences.
Why is knowing these processes from the inside so important for an instructor?
Because friendly awareness directed at the thought affect behaviour cycle can’t easily be described in words. It needs to understood from the inside.
What was the trios main realisation when visiting the Massachusetts clinic of JKZ?
Participants were encouraged to ‘welcome’ difficult thoughts and feelings in a kindly way rather than trying to find a solution.
What is the essential ‘mistake’ the mind makes when trying to free itself from distress.
It tries to think its way out of the distress; it tries to do something about. This rumination in effect deepens the distressed state.
What is the essential characteristics of the doing mode.
To get things done. Build a house, pass an exam, fly to the moon or make a meal. Or on the personal internal level - to feel happy, never make mistakes, never be distressed again or be a good person.
What is good and bad about the doing mode?
The doing mode gets things done. It has worked brilliantly well to make things happen. Get to the moon, build a cathedral, form and build a business etc. Doesn’t work so well on the ‘personal’ ‘internal’ world, the world of thoughts and feelings or the kind of person we see ourselves to be; when distress arises. Trying to sort things out with the thinking mind gets us stuck in the cycle we are trying to get out of. Distress drives us to find a solution.
What are the two main modes of mind?
The Doing (sometimes drive) and the Being mode
When does the doing mode cause problems.
The doing mode doesn’t necessarily cause problems. It does so only when it ‘volunteers for a job it can’t do’.
What is the discrepancy monitor?
A process that continually monitors and evaluates the self and the current situation against a model or standard.
What is the Core Skill in the MBCT programme?
To move from rumination (driven - doing) to being mode. Moving from focussing on CTs emphasis on changing content to a focus on process. ie instead of thinking about it differently we observe instead the transitory nature of thinking itself.
When can participants find opportunists to cultivate being mode?
In principle this mode of mind can be practised anytime and in all situations. But doing mode very pervasive therefore instructor has to embody being mode almost constantly.
Why is being mode the ideal alternative to doing - driven mode?
Because the two modes cannot exist in the mind at the same time. Therefore the cultivation of the being mode stops the doing - driven mode.
Can other modes be cultivated?
Yes. Once the being mode is established one can for example encourage one that will facilitate skilful planned action to alleviate distressed States.
