Where is the group:
Zoom
Mind & Body Garden Psychology Center
650-434-2563
www.mindbodygarden.com
MBCT Group
What is Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) group?
MBCT was originally developed by Drs. Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindal Segal to help prevent depression relapse among patients with recurrent depression. Recent years saw its spread to non-clinical settings, serving all people who are interested in cultivating a sense of peace and clarity. This group will be psychoeducational in nature. It will be skills-based and will require a strong commitment to skills learning as well as regular mindfulness practices.
Objectives:
-To increase the awareness of one’s experiences and the capacity for staying with one’s experiences
-To improve quality of life through facilitating activities that are nourishing and decreasing activities that are depleting
-To develop mindfulness-based skills on stress management, depression management, and anxiety reduction
Group Guideline:
Session 1: Awareness and Automatic Pilot
Raisin exercise - distinguish thinking and feeling
Mindfulness activity using the 5 senses
Body scan - foundation to build attention
Scripted mindfulness activity for building awareness of mind/body connection
Mindfulness of daily activities
Thought log to track over the course of the week
Session 2: Living in Our Heads
ABC model for linking thoughts and emotions
Antecedents, Behaviors and Consequences-review of themes and exercises to evaluate how thoughts and emotions are linked
Pleasant events calendar to foster attention to the positive
Activity scheduling an positive events scheduling to decrease negative thoughts/cognitive distortions
Mindful breathing for stress and focus
Mindfulness led-scripted breathing exercise- 4 x4 and wise mind breathing (breath in wise out mind)
Session 3: Gather the Scattered Mind
Mindful stretching for working with discomfort
Dynamic stretching for building mind/body connection and linking this to ways to quiet negative and all or nothing thinking
Distractions as ways to create pause and access and change cognitions
Mindful walking for dynamic mindfulness
Being aware of here and now in daily activities, acknowledging negative thoughts that enter and staying present to the activity of walking
Unpleasant events calendar to relate differently to difficulty
Fill out and complete those things that take greater cognitive reserve and create negative feelings
3-Minute breathing space
Paced breathing and unpairing negative thoughts that correspond
Session 4: Recognize Aversion
Mindfulness of breath, body, sounds to deepen awareness
Working with difficulties without struggle
Using mindfulness skills of breath, and cognitive interventions related to Socratic questioning and identifying cognitive distortions to change thought process
Session 5: Allow/Let Be
Exposure to difficult thoughts and feelings to transform them
Exposure hierarchy to thoughts at a graded intensity with the use of paired breathing and measuring subjective units of distress
Notice thoughts without getting lost in them
Mindfulness of thoughts by catching cognitive shifts and bringing them back to the present more rapidly- doing this one mindfully by observing, describing and participating in the thoughts
Session 6: Thoughts are Not Facts
Purposefully exposing to strong thoughts and feelings
Exposure hierarchy to thoughts
Myths about emotions
Techniques for working wisely with difficult thoughts
Session 7: How Can I Best Take Care of Myself?
Recognize relapse signatures to prevent future problems
Develop self-care action plans
Self compassion, refresher of course, making individual maintenance plan for continuing gains in group including calendar and itemized list of things to do
Session 8: Maintaining and Extending New Learning
Personalize mindfulness practices for individual clients
Review individual plans for self care, meditation and cognitive skills to continue practicing
Maintain momentum of positive gains
English MBCT Group:
Led by Adrienne DiFabio, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist
Mondays 6pm - 7:30pm
On-going (next one will start 9/13/2021)
9 weeks totally (one week break in Oct)
If you have Lyra Health, the group fee maybe covered, please contact us for more information (admin@mindbodygarden.com). If you pay out of pocket, you can purchase through our website directly.