SESSIONS EVERY WEEKDAY
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) – Wednesdays
8-week course
Description
Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for depression (MBCT) is an eight-week group programme recommended in national health guidelines for people who suffer from depression, either currently, or in the past. Weekly sessions last two hours and combine mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy exercises enabling us to become more aware of our mind and body and begin to dissolve some of our unhelpful habits of thinking such as rumination, worry and self-criticism.
Over the past 15 years MBCT has become increasingly available within health services as the advantages of using this approach have become more established. Its popularity has increased as people are drawn to the central message of MBCT; that our lives are immeasurably impoverished by our habitual tendency to be on ‘automatic pilot’, during which the richness of momentary experience passes unnoticed. MBCT helps us develop an alternative way of being with experience as we learn skills to more fully engage with our present experience, to be ‘in the moment’.
Click here for more information on MBCT
The courses are suitable for those with a history of depression, or who are currently experiencing an episode of mild-moderate low mood and are only open to residents living in the UK who are registered with a GP. These courses are not suitable for participants who:
- Currently have severe depression: high levels of depression can make engaging in mindfulness and CBT exercises difficult
- Are having suicidal thoughts or urges: mindfulness meditation can be difficult in these circumstances
- Are experiencing a recent significant life event or stress that is causing considerable distress
If any of the above apply, please contact your GP or mental health support team.
By joining this course you understand that:
- Your application (and any other relevant information obtained during your course) will be shared between the OMF & Nottingham Centre for Mindfulness
- Your application information will be shared with your GP which will include:
- Sharing of Treatment Plan (course attendance info)
- Further liaison with your GP if concerns arise during the course
- Prior to participation completion of health measures (PHQ9 & GAD7) is required
- We will ask if you are under the care of secondary care mental health services
- Questionnaires will include confidential mental health declarations (including suicidality) which are handled by the Nottingham Mindfulness Team who are clinicians located within the NHS
Full Dates: Wednesdays: 10/04, 17/04, 24/04, 1/05, 8/05,15/05, 22/05, 29/05
12:00-14:00 UK Time.
What will I do on this course?
On this course you will:- Attend 8 weekly sessions lasting 2 hours. The first session is 2 hours and 30 minutes
- This is a structured course where each session builds upon what has been introduced before. This is why it is important to attend all the sessions
- You will be in a group of up to 16 people, led by one of the Nottingham Centre for Mindfulness' clinical team
- Each session will have guided and structured meditation practices
- Each practice or exercise is followed by a review of what you and/or other participants experienced or discovered in that practice/exercise. This review does not include a discussion of participants’ past history
- Each session is followed by suggestions for personal practice of up to 45 minutes. This includes both recommended guided practices, and also ways to cultivate new habits of mindfulness in everyday life
- Each session (except the first) includes a review of the previous week’s personal practice
- You will have access to resources which gives you guided practices and written material to support each session
Learning Outcomes
On this course you will learn the following skills:- How to ‘stabilise the attention’: to recognise mind wandering and ‘autopilot’, and how to bring the attention back to where we want it to be – with interest, patience, and care
- Learning more about two different ways of being and knowing: through direct experience and through thinking. Understanding more about how the mind creates meaning
- Learning to recognise our patterns of reactivity and how trying to get rid of distress may actually keep us stuck
- Bringing a sense of care and kindness to ourselves in those moments of distress and reactivity
- Using mindfulness to respond skilfully, not react – in ways that support the wellbeing of ourselves and of others around us
- To ‘step back’ a little from our direct experience so that we can see it more clearly, and so choose a kinder response
- Building what we have learnt into our everyday lives
- This course supports participants to better understand the patterns of recurrent depression
About the Teacher
Sonia Moratto
Sonia Moratto has a Master’s degree in Teaching Mindfulness- based Approaches via Bangor University. She works within Nottinghamshire NHS Trust as a Mindfulness practitioner. She is an Occupational Therapist by background and has extensive mental health experience. Sonia has taught MBCT in secondary mental healthcare since 2007. She now teaches mindfulness programmes primarily in Staff Wellbeing, including MBCTD and MBCTL, plus a range of short mindfulness - based courses and tailor-made workshops. Sonia is a trainer within the MBCT Foundation Training and a mindfulness-based supervisor. She is interested in the breadth of mindfulness-based teachings and how they can be applied both therapeutically and in a wider social context.
