Is Mindfulness the Future of Therapy?

Fifteen years after Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy was introduced to the world, this groundbreaking treatment only reaches a small percentage of people suffering from depression. Two innovators want to change that.

Imagine this scenario. Harry wakes up on a typical workday, a Wednesday, in a mood—a frighteningly intense mood. A free-floating anxiety courses through his body, making him edgy and angry. When he gets up and goes into the kitchen, he hears his roommate opening a bag of chips to put a handful in his brown-bag lunch. The crinkling of the chip bag sounds like the roar of a jet engine to Harry; it’s that irritating. He wants to scream at his roommate to quiet down and just go away, now.

He keeps it together enough to let his roommate get on with his day, but these feelings scare Harry. He feels he may be losing control altogether. How can he concentrate? How can he work with others? Perhaps he should just go back to bed and curl up in a ball, but no, he’s been there before. That could take him in a downward spiral of indeterminate length, a deep, dark funk.

Harry stands there frozen in the kitchen, teetering uncertainly between alternative versions of hell, barely able to find a sliver of stable ground to walk on. He holds his head in his hands and starts to cry. He…

Read More

GROW YOUR MEDITATION PRACTICE


Get practices, tips, and special offers delivered straight to your inbox

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
About the author

Barry Boyce

Barry Boyce is Founding Editor of Mindful and Mindful.org. A longtime meditation practitioner and teacher—as well as a professional writer and editor— he is the editor of and a primary contributor to The Mindfulness Revolution: Leading Psychologists, Scientists, Artists, and Meditation Teachers on the Power of Mindfulness in Daily Life. Barry also worked closely with Congressman Tim Ryan, as developmental editor, on A Mindful Nation and The Real Food Revolution. Barry serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for a Mindful Society and the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto as well as on the advisory board of Peace in Schools, in Portland, Oregon.