Positive - Therapy Flashcards
What is the name of the therapy of the Positive Approach
Mindfulness
What are the three stages of mindfulness?
- Gaining Control of our Thoughts
- Meditation and mindful breathing
- Informal practises of Mindfulness
Describe the first stage of ‘gaining control of our thoughts’
This stage is all about focussing on our present thoughts rather than reminiscing on the past or worrying about our future.
Mindfulness teaches us to focus on the present and to become aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and also to accept them.
Negative automatic thinking can lead to anxiety and depression, mindfulness allows individuals to realise when these automatic processes are occurring and reflect on them.
However, by focussing on the present, we gain greater understanding of unhelpful and negative thoughts so we can gain control over them.
Describe ‘Meditation and mindful breathing’
All about how you should meditate. Sitting meditation is thought to be the best for mindfulness and it physically removes an individual from their current life actives. Involves guided instruction and personal practise.
It involves the client: sitting in a comfortable position, keeping their spine straight and paying direct attention to their breathing.
They will be asked to pay attention to their body sensations and their thoughts and emotions throughout which helps to prevent the intrusion of any negative thoughts.
What is meant by ‘informal practises of mindfulness’
Mindfulness can be practised in daily life in any activities we find pleasant! For example: drawing, showering or driving. As long as they are able to pay attention to their surroundings and sensations. while in the activity, it is considered an informal practise of mindfulness therapy.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of mindfulness (not description)
effectiveness strength:
application to other therapies with 3 examples. (teasdale, reibel giannou)
Ethics strengths:
moral (Ruedy and Schwitzer)
therapy is very positive
Give a strength of the effectiveness of mindfulness in relation to INTEGRATION TO OTHER THERAPIES
One strength of mindfulness is its application to other therapies:
Mindfulness has been incorporated into other therapies such as CBT, offering new and alternate perspectives in that therapy. For example Mindfulness based CBT is different to regular CBT:
CBT typically modifies our unrealistic thoughts, which has the risk of participant blame whereas miCBT instead changes how we perceive these thoughts and instead accept them.
Give a strength of the effectiveness of application of mindfulness based cognitive therapy
Another strength of mindfulness by cognitive therapy is that it has been shown to improve the condition of patients who suffer from depression and commonly relapse.
The effectiveness of MBCBT was seen in Teasdale et al (2000) who evaluated the effectiveness of MiCBT among 145 recurrently depressed patients.
Patients were randomly allocated 8 classes of CBT as well as treatment as usual and then measured the rate the patients relapsed into major depression.
The results showed the MCBT provided the greatest help to those who had relapsed 3 or more times
however It had little to no effect on those who had relapsed twice or less, which could be considered a weakness.
Give a strength of the effectiveness of mindfulness in relation to application of MBSR (stress reduction)
MBSR has been developed in hospitals for patients suffering from chronic or terminal illnesses.
For example in Reibel et al, MBSR was found to reduce levels of anxiety and stress in 136 patients who participated in an 8 week program of 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation per day.
Results were long term as the results were also seen after a 1 year follow up.
Give a strength of the effectiveness of mindfulness in relation to GROUP V INDIVIDUAL MINDFULNESS
For certain psychological problems, there is evidence that CBT is most effective in a group setting.
For example, Giannou (2014) investigated group versus individual mindfulness in 170 randomly allocated patients trying to lose weight.
They found those in the group setting lost a significant amount more weight than the non-group setting.
However, this is both a disadvantage and an advantage as while it shows it is effective. It shows mindfulness may not be as effective in a non-group setting.
Give a strength of the ethics of mindfulness in relation to positivity of therapy
A strength of the ethics of Mindfulness is that unlike other therapies, mindfulness does not involve dragging up the past as a means of explaining present behaviour, this improve the ethics as using past events can be anxiety inducing for many people if the events are traumatic to them, this approach is also less deterministic as it does not suggest our behaviour is caused by past events that we cannot change now.
Additionally, unlike other therapies such as CBT, mindfulness does not blame the participant for their beliefs and try and change them, instead Mindfulness encourages acceptance of negative thoughts and encourages the participant to focus on the present rather than worrying about past or future events which many people would find far more ethical.
Give a strength of the ethics of mindfulness in relation to Morality of patients
Mindfulness is seen as essential in maintaining moral and ethical standards in decision making.
For instance Ruedy and Schwitzer found individuals who were high in mindfulness were far less likely to cheat on a task and more likely to uphold ethical standards showing how improving our state of mind through mindfulness will result in us becoming more moral in many facets of life.
