programme thus involves intensive training in mindfulness meditation together with discussion on stress and life skills. The evidence base on MBSR shows significant positive effect sizes with participants with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, generalised anxiety disorder and panic, psoriasis, cancer and health care provider self care.Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)MBCT is an integration of MBSR with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It was developed and initially researched through a three site randomised control trial. It was developed to help people suffering from depression. It has been shown to help recovered recurrently depressed participants, through teaching them skills to disengage from habitual automatic unhelpful cognitive patterns. The pattern of mind which makes people vulnerable to depressive relapse is rumination, in which the mind repetitively re-runs negative thoughts. The core skill that MBCT is teaching is to intentionally shift mental gears.MBCT differs from conventional CBT as it does not place emphasis on changing belief in the content of thought. The focus in MBCT is on a systematic training to be more aware, moment by moment of physical sensations and of thoughts and feelings as mental events. This facilitates a decentred relationship to thoughts and feelings from which we can see them as aspects of experience which move through our awareness and which are not necessarily reality in any given moment.The evidence base on MBCT shows that it can halve the relapse rate in recovered patients with three or more episodes of depression. It is effective in preventing autonomous relapses but not those provoked by stressful events.Other targeted versions of MBCT have now been developed. e.g. MBCT for chronic fatigue syndrome and for oncology patients.The key differences between MBSR and MBCTAlthough the two programmes are broadly similar, and are often used flexibly the key ways in which MBCT differs from MBSR are as follows: MBCT tends to target specific conditions or vulnerabilities where as MBSR has a more generic application and is applied to stress arising from a variety of life events including physical or mental illness. Both MBSR and MBCT promote psychological insights about our experiences and difficulties and aim to develop skills to deal with these differently. MBCT puts a greater emphasis on working with and understanding the psychological and cognitive aspects of our experience. Both MBSR and MBCT integrate the dynamic, in-the-moment-responding aspect of mindfulness with an understanding of the origins and maintenance factors of the unhelpful behaviours or psychopathology being dealt with. MBCT is taught within a cognitive understanding and framework. Both MBSR and MBCT draw on concepts and and skills from other disciplines, for example, MBSR includes teaching on everyday communication and life style, MBCT includes techniques and exercises from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and includes didactic elements, which give the participants information about a particular difficulty e.g. in the case of depression participants are given information on the universal characteristics of depression to facilitate them in recognising and dealing with their relapse signatures. Visit the official UK website of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy http://mbct.co.uk/ Copyright 2001-2011 Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, Bangor Universitytel: 01248 382939 | email: mindfulness@bangor.ac.uk