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What is MiCBT?

There is a growing number of therapy approaches that incorporate mindfulness training. Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavior Therapy or MiCBT is one of these approaches. It offers a practical set of evidence-based techniques derived from mindfulness training together with principles of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to address a broad range of psychological disorders and general stress conditions. Below is a brief overview of the foundations of MiCBT as well as the core mechanisms and basic practice components of this valuable therapeutic approach.

What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness involves paying attention to each event experienced in the present moment within our body and mind, with a non-judgmental, non-reactive and accepting attitude. In learning to be mindful, we can begin to counter many of our everyday sufferings such as stress, anxiety and depression because we are learning to experience events in a more impersonal and detached way. Mindfulness has its roots in an Eastern meditation technique called Vipassana and shares with it a number of central principles and mechanisms including what are known as equanimity and impermanence.

Equanimity is best described as a neutral response to something we experience. It is a state of awareness where we neither feel an aversion for unpleasant experiences nor craving for pleasant ones. Other ways of describing equanimity are balance, calmness and composure. The development of equanimity, or an equanimous mind as it is sometimes called, is an important part of mindfulness skills because it gives us the ability to remain less reactive and less judgmental no matter what is experienced, thereby giving us a feeling of ease, self-control and composure as we go about our daily lives.

Impermanence -- mindfulness incorporates the notion of impermanence, the changing nature of all things including our own mental and emotional experiences. By experiencing the changing nature of internal experiences, we can learn to see ourselves in a more objective and scientific way. We can detach ourselves from rigid views that can sometimes lead to stress and unhappiness.

What is CBT? The way we think often affects our emotions and behavior and CBT or Cognitive Behavior Therapy helps people with such conditions as anxiety and depression change the content of unhelpful thoughts and their maladaptive ways of coping, such as avoidance or addictive behavior.

MiCBT -- Integrating Mindfulness and CBT. MiCBT is a therapeutic approach which integrates mindfulness and some of the basic principles of CBT in order to help people improve the way they feel and change unhelpful behaviors. However, MiCBT helps people make changes in a different way to CBT. While CBT attempts to change maladaptive behavior by modifying people's unrealistic thoughts and beliefs, MiCBT tries to help people learn to develop control over the processes that maintain the unrealistic thoughts and beliefs through mindfulness training. MiCBT helps change the process of thinking, not just the content of our thoughts.

Changing Reactive Habits: Like CBT, MiCBT draws on the principles of exposure and desensitization to help us change habitual unhelpful reactions or coping strategies. However, unlike other models of cognitive therapy, MiCBT regards learned reactive habits as being the result of our own way of reacting towards the body sensations that result from our judgmental thoughts. Preventing such reactions, while remaining fully aware and accepting of bodily experiences, leads to rapid change in our habitual feelings and behaviors. We feel emotionally relieved.

Interpersonal Mindfulness: MiCBT cannot only help people change distressing thoughts, feelings and behaviors, it can also help people change their relationships with others. The skills we learn in MiCBT can help us not to react to others and foster a greater understanding and acceptance of ourselves and others. This usually culminates in more harmonious relationships and helps prevent relapse into habitual moods and behavior.

Mindfulness and the Power of Empathy: MiCBT teaches people to use their own resources for empathy towards themselves and others. The previous mentioned steps lead to the realization that we are the first beneficiary of the emotions we produce, whether this is a positive or negative emotion. A deep sense of empowerment, acceptance and change usually occurs at the end of the program.

Source: Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavior Therapy based on Bruno Cayoun's model -- more information can be found at www.mindfulness.net.au/