Small steps in mindfulness research

• Prevalence of Meditation by James Spira, 3/30/98
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    • Well, actually . . . . by Jim Spira, 5/6/98
      
      

Dear Dr. Spira:

I very much agree that good quality research on the effects of meditation is needed. In fact, there are a number of starts in this direction, one of which may be of interest.

My colleagues and I have written a paper describing how an integrative therapy combining aspects of Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Based Stress-Reduction and Cognitive Therapy can be used to help prevent relapse in patients who have recoverd from depression. We are also conducting a randomized clinical trial across 3 sites to look at this empirically. This work is also supported by the NIMH.

A paper describing the theoretical basis for our work can be found in:

Teasdale, Segal and Williams (1995). How does cognitive therapy prevent depressive relaspe and why should Attentional Control (Mindfulness) Training help? BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY, Vol. 33, pages 25-39.

Hope this is of interest.

• GREAT! by Jim Spira, 5/9/98