A great product for individuals with Severe Depression

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	• The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale, ... The Guilford Press, 2007 - 273 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A great product for individuals with Severe Depression

Many of the materials that are available for working with depressive clients are most successful with Moderate to mild depression. I have found this book helpful for those with more severe depressions. The methods don't require battling negative thoughts so much as seeing them as "noise in the background". After the depression begins to lift, the more traditional cognitive therapy methods can be used in combination with the mindfulness strategies.

Depression Doesn't Have to be Forever

I have taught the 8-week workshop on which this book is based, and found that participants were greatly helped by it. The book offers the same material, and it can be very helpful for the reader. A certain amount of discipline is needed to do the daily homework, but I found an interesting quote by Zindel Segal, one of the authors recently. He said that people who are more afflicted by depression have the "gift of desperation," to motivate them. In the NYC workshop participants answered the question, "How important has this program been to you?" with a 9.75 out of a perfect 10.0 rating. Of particular benefit is the teaching on mindfulness meditation. People find a calm they never knew existed, and quite quickly. The book starts with an introduction to the 'body scan' and asks that the reader do it daily for several weeks. This is not too much practice.... it is introducing a whole new and different way of relating to the body, feelings in the body, and the present experience. Later in the book the 3-Minute Breathing Space is introduced. In some ways this is the capstone of the whole book, a tool that has been called a gift by some psychologists. All in all, this is a practical, workable way through depression. Depression doesn't have to be forever. As a footnote, the methods in the workshop have been carefully researched and replicated. This method really works, and the book is a way of presenting the program in a widely-available format. (Results can be found by Googling PubMed.Gov, and entering MBCT as the search term.) My next workshop begins March 31 in New York City.
I heartily recommend this book!

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Finally, a practical use for mindfulness!.

Mindfulness meditation can sometimes seem to be a practice without a purpose. In addition to the possibility of putting ourselves into a peaceful state, why should we meditate? This book has an answer. It presents a model of the structure of depression (which might be a useful model for all forms of suffering). It says that depression is a self-reinforcing feedback loop of feelings, ruminations, judgments, body sensations, and behaviors. When we try to think our way out of this loop, we just end up reinforcing it. Instead of trying to think our way out, the authors suggest sidestepping the loop entirely by leaving the "doing" mode and going into the "being" mode, i.e., into a state of mindfulness. That removes the resistance, which is the source of suffering. The authors present an eight-week program of practices and meditations, including guided meditations on an included CD. They have helped me a lot.

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We needed this book!

Very good research has been done on the use of mindfulness meditation in the prevention of repeated episodes of depression. While the use of classes to teach this is great, try finding them for you, or your clients if you're a therapist! This book becomes a gift then to all those who can't find the classes, or don't have the time to go. My only criticism is that it's a bit wordy and slow in the first two chapters, which might lose some people (almost lost me!) After that, though it is wonderfully written, and the CD very helpful.

Mindfulness skills to weather the storm

This is a must read! Here is what I learned.

Celebrate the miraculous creature that you are! Your God-given gifts provide you with insight, innate tools and mystical powers to create all things not directly created by Him.

Your thoughts are mental media. Mindfulness therapy is the cognitive ear that attends to your bundle of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations oxygenating the passing black cloud.

Our streams of mental thoughts passing through our brain are not unlike the stream of light passing through pictures, accompanied by sounds of the movie we watch. The bundle of thoughts, feelings, and sensations we attended to in that experience evokes emotions and a sense of reality in our imagination. As we become drawn into the experience our story is bundled into a reality state. When the movie is over, we often ruminate about it for some time, but we realize it is entertainment and store it just below the surface in our subconscious mind. In depression, we ruminate on the bundle and fail to distinguish the script from reality. Accordingly the sensations drag us in the hopeless pit of anger and sadness. We can break that downward spiral by accepting those sensations for what they are and let them pass.

Every time we get back in touch with ourselves, the conditions become favorable for us to encounter life in the present moment. Practicing Mindfulness enables us to become a real person.

The book and accompanying CD provide step-by-step Mindfulness Therapy/instruction to gain the skills to weather the storm of depression. Buy it today. You will not be sorry.

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