Therapy

Question 1

What are the aims of mindfulness?

Answer 1

To be in control of your own mind by paying attention to present thoughts and emotions
To enhance our positive characteristics by allowing yourself to be a happier individual

Question 2

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 2

Invented by Martin Seligman who said thsi was a reasoning some get depression
Symptoms develop when a feeling of uncontrolled is detected leaving feeling of helplessness and eventually depression
Suggests that individuals lack behaviour control over the events in their environment which undermines their motivation to make a change or an attempt to alter situatuons

Question 3

What does positivists believe about depression?

Answer 3

Individuals develop depression as a result of their own feelings stemming from free will
“the secret of health for the mind and body is not to mourn for the last, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly

Question 4

What are the components of mindfulness?

Answer 4

-Control over thoughts
-Meditation/mindful breathing
-Informal practices

Question 5

What is component 1 of therapy?

Answer 5

gaining control of thoughts

Question 6

What is gaining control of thoughts?

Answer 6

Focusing on the present and avoiding dwelling on the past and the future
-Mindfulness trains us to focus on what’s going on in the moment and becoming aware of immediate thoughts and feelings
-Goal is to accept them and becoming comfortable with thoughts
-If we become aware of negative thoughts we can have control over them and how we react

Question 7

What are negative thoughts?

Answer 7

Focusing on the present, we gain greater awareness if unhelpful negative thoughts we are having, which allow us to control these
By responding to positive and optimistic way therefore reducing the impact on feelings and behaviour

Question 8

What is negative automatic thinking?

Answer 8

Lead to mental health disorder like anxiety and depression- mindfulness should help the individual identify these thoughts and alter their reaction to it through mindfulness practice like meditations

Question 9

Where did mindfulness come from?

Answer 9

Buddhist
Came from various religious and secular traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism to yoga and non religious meditation
Been in practice for thousands of years
Gaining control of thoughts has been around for a very long time

Question 10

What is component 2?

Answer 10

Meditation and mindful breathing

Question 11

What is meditation and mindful breathing?

Answer 11

Involves the physical practice and mindfulness
e.g. by developing skills through training which can help the patient remove their attention from daily life and focus on the present
Meditation is best learned through a mix of guided instruction and personal practice

Question 12

What is mindful breathing- C2?

Answer 12

Physical aspect of minfulness, patients can practice this
Specific techniques that the patients can practice, can learn this with hopes they can complete them
independently in future

Question 13

What are the four breathing techniques?

Answer 13

Belly Breathing- Slowly fill and empty your belly with breath
Breath Count- Count your breaths slowly and evenly
Mindful breathing- Pay attention to rythms of your breath
Breaking visualisation- Visualise taking something in positive with each breath

Question 14

What is guided meditation?

Answer 14

Most effective
Sitting meditation, spine straight with a focus on breathing and bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions
Meditation should help an individual to realise that thoughts and emotions are impermanent, they come and go so we shouldn’t fixate or react automatically

Question 15

What is the National Institute for health Care Excellence (NICE)?

Answer 15

Mindfulness technique have been used for a range of problems
NICE recommends mindfulness as a preventative treatment for those with reacurring depression
Can be used in every day life to improve well being in those not experiencing a particular psychological issue

Question 16

6 steps to practice guided mediation?

Answer 16

1) Settle in a comfortable position
2) Close your eyes
3) Bring your awareness to your bodily sensations e.g. breathing
4) Maintain awareness as you breathe in and out
5) Allow breath to flow without trying to change it
6) If your mind wandered bring your awareness back to your breathing

Question 17

What is component 3 of therapy?

Answer 17

Informal practices of mindfulness

Question 18

What is informal practices of mindfulness

Answer 18

Once learned, mindfulness can be practiced in informal ways e.g. in the car
Informal mindfulness is the opposite to multi tasking
When the mind begins to wonder the individual should bring their attention back to the sensations and thought they were experiencing

Question 19

What is online meditation? and an example

Answer 19

Growth of mindfulness has led to an abundance of meditation recourses online which are available for patients to practice at home
For example- Headspace which is an online platform for at home meditation, consist of guiding mediations with different aims e.g. feelings of stress anger and sadness

Question 20

What are the 3 different ways of practicing mindfulness?

Answer 20

-Mindfulness in School Projects
-Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
-Mindfulness Based Cognative Therapy

Question 21

All about Mindfulness based stress reduction?

Answer 21

Designed for stress managing, illnesses like anxiety depression, ibs, skin cancer etc
-An option within CBT, reducing stress hormone levels
-Mainly used as a complimentary treatment
-Based on tradition meditation
-Don’t judge what you feel and don’t change sensation without analysing it
-Included making it a challenge not a chore
-8 classes in 8 weeks and giving educational material

Question 22

Evaluation reaserch support- Crane and al (2014)?

Answer 22

Found that for people who’ve experienced 3+ previous episodes of depression
MBCT reduced recurrence rate iver 12 months by 40-50% with usual care
Due to the reaserch supporting the effectiveness of mindfulness in the UK
the government national institute for the health and clinical excellence (NICE) has recommended MBCT in their guidelines for the management of depression for service users should have had three or more episodes of depression

Question 23

Evaluation reaserch support-Williams et al (2014)?

Answer 23

Compared MBCT with other treatments in people who had previously suffered depression
They were randomly allocated to each of these conditions and followed up a year later
MBCT provided protection against relapse in people with a history of childhood trauma, but did not show any significant advantage in other participants

Question 24

Evaluation reaserch support- Kuyken et al (2013)?

Answer 24

Compared children in secondary schools who took part in the mindfulness in schools programme to those who took part in the usual school curriculum l
Children eh who were involved in the mindfulness programme reported less stress, greater well being and fewer depressive symptoms compared to the control group

Question 25

SEEW paragraph for reaserch support?

Answer 25

S- one strength of mindfulness as a therapy is that their is evidence to support its use as a therapist for depression
E- Crane et sl found that fire people who gave expreienced they’re or more previous episodes of depression MBCT reduced the recurrence rate over 12 months by 40-50% compared to usual care
W based on this fact the NICE have recommended that MBCT can be used in cases of three ir more episodes of depression
W- This is a strength as it shows us that mindfulness in combination with cognative therapy can be successful in the treatment of mental health disorders

Question 26

Methological issues with supporting reaserch?

Answer 26

Most evidence suggests that mindfulness helps with depression although some psychologists suggest the methodology behind the positive studies have not been as rigorous as they should have been
Professor Patricia Casey of University College Dublin says that many study’s were small pilot studies, the patients were alos on the mild end of the spectrum and studies haven’t fully shown how mindfulness compared with other therapies like pharmacological interventions

Question 27

SEEW paragraph for methodological issues with supporting reaserch?

Answer 27

S- one weekness of mindfulness as a therapy is that the reaserch supporting its use can be criticised
E- Many studies into pos psychology are small scale, often pilot studies as mindfulness as a therapy is still a new concept. They also haven’t had frequent investigations that are large scale with severely mentally ill patients only ones in the mild end of the spectrum
E- This is an issue as their is a lack of evidence comparing the effectiveness of mindfulness to other more established interventions such as CBT and others
The fact this isn’t seen as effective means how can it be credible and treat people with such severe mental health
C- Kuyken et al did a study in a school and found that those completing mindfulness reported less stress, greater well being and a less depressive issue
W- This is a weakness because it leads us to question weather there is enough scientific evidence to support the use of minfulness as a therapy for mental health disorders

Question 28

SEECW paragraph negative effects?

Answer 28

S- One weekness of mindfulness as a therapy is that medication can have negatively be effects for some people because instead it can cause more stress then not
E- Whilst the practice is easy to understand, not everyone benefits from it nor can they use meditation n to their advantage as people may grow frustrat d with the constant focusing and can be challanginb
E- For example whilst studies show benefits from consistent mindfulness practice in just 8 months weeks it dosent mean this works for everyone as we are all different
C- However this isn’t true for everyone as eveyone will experience it in different way and many people find it relaxing and worthy
W- This is a weekness because some people who attempt mindfulness feel worse then they started therefore it isn’t ethical

Question 29

Ethics- highly ethical Ruedy and Schweitzer (2010)

Answer 29

Found that individuals who were high in mindfulness were less likely. cheat on a task therefore therapy made them uphold higher ethical and moral values

Question 30

SEECW paragraph for highly ethical?

Answer 30

S- one strength if mindfulness as a therapy is that it’s highly ethical due to its non invasive process and patients have controlled or their own thoughts and can’t drop out when they feel necessary
E- Genraloy minfulness had been seen to be highly ethical as a therapy ut have a few side and takes a highly positive attitude toward individual wellbeing, it promotes free will empowering people to make changes in their own life
E- Compared to cbt minfulness does not place pressure on the client. compared to drug therapy there are no serious side effects that hqve an impact in the progress of the therapy- Mention Ruedey and Schweitzer
C- The dark night, buddhists meditate to much and felt like they had an empty void and felt like that have nothing to focus on as they have inner peace
W- This is a strength as it shows that mindfulness requires less pressure compared to other therapies and there is less risk of side effect or having an unpleasant experience, therefore patients are less likely to feel guilty about their thought process and is an extremely positive approach the theraoy

Question 31

Ethical- Accessible SEEW paragraph?

Answer 31

S- another strength of minfulness as a therapy is that it’s accessible to all individuals
E- This is becysde we can now do it anywhere they please unlike CBT
E- For example headspace
W- This is a strength and can be done whenever