Groups, Classes, & Workshops
MINDFULNESS BASED COGNITIVE THERAPY
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is designed to help with stress, depression and chronic unhappiness. It was originally developed to prevent Major Depressive Disorder relapse and has been adapted and used to treat children, addictions, pregnant women at risk for depression, hypochondriasis, chronic fatigue syndrome, tinnitus, auditory hallucinations, insomnia, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. Below is a video of one of the original developers of MBCT, Dr. Zindel Segal, describing the original program.
For further information, you can go to www.mbct.com
Instructor:
Kelly Yi, PhD. is a licensed psychologist, founder and director of The Mindful Center for Individual, Couple and Family Therapy and was trained directly by Dr. Zindel Segal in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. He has been practicing mindfulness in various forms for over 20 years and is a certified Cultivating Emotional Balance teacher by The Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness Studies. He has led MBCT classes in the California prison system and has trained mental health clinicians in MBCT at Palo Alto University/Pacific Graduate School of Psychology and through The Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy.
Cultivating Emotional Balance Program
What is the Cultivating Emotional Balance program?
The Cultivating Emotional Balance program arose from a dialogue between biobehavioral scientists studying emotion and the Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks, and scholars at the Mind and Life Institute in Dharamsala, India in March of 2000. Daniel Goleman documents this meeting in the book “Destructive Emotions.”
After this meeting, at the Dalai Lama’s request, Dr. Paul Ekman, a Western scientist with expertise in emotions, and Dr. B. Alan Wallace, an expert in Buddhist Contemplative practices, led a team of Western scientists and Buddhist contemplatives in developing a training program that integrated secularized contemplative practices with Western methods for dealing with destructive emotional experiences. The training’s purpose is to reduce emotional reactions that are destructive to self and others and enhance compassion, empathy, and constructive emotional responses for self and others.
The program is designed to help develop:
Attentional Balance through:
Concentration exercises
Mindfulness practices
Motivational Balance through:
Reflective practices
Aligning your desires and life with your deepest values
Cognitive Balance through:
Inquiring into and clearly seeing the various aspects of your moment-to-moment experience
Aligning your thoughts with what is presented in your direct experience
Emotional Balance through:
Recognizing your emotions clearly
Understanding your emotional reactions and the roots of your emotional reactions
Recognizing emotions in others to promote empathy and harmonious relationship
Utilizing attentional, motivational and cognitive intelligence to develop genuine happiness
Scientific investigations suggest that the program can help with reducing difficult emotions such as anxiety and depression and increasing helpful emotions and mindfulness. In addition, participants in the program tended to: be able to recognize emotions in others better; be protected from some of the psychophysical effects of stress; more easily activate compassion; and reduce their hostile behavior in intimate relationships.
To learn more about the program or to apply, email info@eastbaymindfulcenter.org or call (510) 698-2467.