Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Professor Dr. Jon Kabat Zinn

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was originally developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to improve the quality of life of those living with anxiety, pain and illness. Centuries-old meditation techniques are demystified and are integrated into an eight-week program where participants learn to heighten their awareness and to live more fully, moment to moment. http://www.mbsrbc.ca/pages/about.htm

Meta-analysis of MBSR & Health Benefits. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is astructured group program that employs mindfulness meditation to alleviate suffering associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. The program, nonreligious and nonesoteric, is based upon a systematic procedure to develop enhanced awareness of moment-to-moment experience of perceptible mental processes. The approach assumes that greater awareness will provide more veridical perception, reduce negative affect and improve vitality and coping. In the last two decades, a number of research reports appeared that seem to support many of these claims. We performed a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of published and unpublished studies of health-related studies related to MBSR. http://pckar39022.googlepages.com/MBSR_metanalysis.pdf

Mindfulness In Clinical Practice. The practice of mindfulness is increasingly being integrated into contemporary clinical psychology. Based in Buddhist philosophy and subsequently integrated into Western health care in the contexts of psychotherapy and stress management, mindfulness meditation is evolving as a systematic clinical intervention. This article describes stress-reduction applications of mindfulness meditation predominantly in medical settings, as originally conceived and developed by Kabat-Zinn and colleagues. It describes process factors associated with the time-limited, group-based format favored by this model, and presents in tabular form results of both early and more recent outcome studies. http://pckar39022.googlepages.com/Mindfulnessmeditationinclinicalpract.pdf