Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy as a Tool to Manage Emotional and Psychological Distress

Mindfulness and acceptance-based cognitive behavioral psychotherapies offer a systematic approach to understanding human suffering, and view processes such as experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and rumination for example as central elements in the maintenance of psychological distress. MBCT is a well-recognized mindfulness and acceptance-based CBT intervention, well recognized in the treatment of mild-moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety in a broad range of clinical populations. In this chapter readers will be presented the cognitive and behavioral processes that make mindfulness a potential intervention for a wide range of psychological disorders. Readers will have a chance to learn how these processes might be used in their own current clinical cases, with emphasis on how MBCT may be applied as a transdiagnostic CBT therapy.