| ACT | Stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. This is a form of therapy that stresses the acceptance of past experiences. It is associated with the author Stephen C. Hayes who suggests “developing a willingness to embrace every experience life has to offer”. ACT is not strictly speaking a mindfulness-based therapy. It is included here because some other mindfulness books refer to ACT without explaining what it is. There is a thought-awareness exercise embedded in the self-help book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) by Stephen C. Hayes and Spencer Smith. Go to Order Page |
| CBT | Stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This is a type of talk therapy in which the therapist tries to equip the client with coping strategies to defeat self-destructive thoughts. This has lead to a mindfulness-based therapy MBCT co-developed by the mindfulness author Professor Mark Williams. See MBCT entry below. |
| Character Course | The Character Course has been developed in the UK by Dr. Roger Bretherton with a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. It is an 8 week course with units on Learning, Hope, Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Humor, Persistence and Curiosity. Those using the course can either play a short video introducing the content or if the teachers want to deliver the content in person the text of the talks are also available. To access the course content visit this Web page. |
| Contemplative Prayer | In recent years secular psychologists have started referring to mindfulness techniques as if they are a new discovery. In fact, there is a category of Christian practice called “contemplative prayer” that shares many of the same characteristics. However, one crucial difference is that contemplative prayer will often invite you to have a closer relationship to God. One form of prayer involves repeated the name “Jesus” while concentrating on the breath. On of the best books on this is Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. This is mainly about why you should do contemplative prayer rather than how you should do it. It contains many moving stories about people whose lives have been transformed by contemplative prayer. Go to Order Page |
| MBCT | Stands for Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Mark Williams and Danny Penman cite research that compares people who have suffered multiple bouts of depression who are treated in two categories. Some were asked to do an 8 week mindfulness course while the other group continued their anti-depressant medication. The mindfulness group fared as well as those who continued with medication (though the authors are quick to advise people not to discontinue medication without medical advice). The self-help version of the Williams-Penman course is called Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Go to Order Page The meditation audio files are freely downloadable from this Web page |
| MBEA | Stands for Mindfulness Based Eating Awareness. This has been used as a strategy to promote weight loss and defeat Binge Eating Disorder. I have not been able to review a self-help book based on this approach. There are a number of research articles that explore this approach. One article published in 2013 describes an experiment in which people with Binge Eating Disorder were placed in one of three groups: an MBEA group, a no change group and a group with a therapy similar to CBT (see above). After 4 months 95% of the MBEA group no longer had Binge Eating Disorder. 76% of the people in the CBT type therapy group also no longer had it. If you want to see the detailed results (including the statistical jargon) you can see the full results here. This article gives a slightly different version of the MBEA term: MB-EAT. |
| MBPM | Stands for Mindfulness Based Pain Management. This entry differs from others in this list in that it centers on physical pain (rather than emotional psychological suffering). The most accessible mindfulness course to help learn this technique is by the New Zealand writer Vidyamala Burch who has a compelling personal story that required her to live through chronic pain. She experienced a spinal injury while lifting someone out of a pool at the age of 16. At the age of 23 her spine was further injured in a major car accident. She has co-authored a book with Danny Penman entitled You Are Not Your Pain: Using Mindfulness to Relieve Pain, Reduce Stress, and Restore Well-Being – An Eight-Week Program. Go to Order Page The meditation audio files are freely downloadable from this Web page |
| MBRP | Stands for Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention. This concerns the use of mindfulness to conquer additions like alcohol and drug abuse. There are a number of books in this category available on Amazon.com but none have been reviewed for this Web site. An academic review article can be found on this Web page. Though this article is intended for a scientific audience it has the virtue of keeping the statistical jargon to a minimum. |
| MBSP | Stands for Mindfulness Based Strength Practice. In this context “strength” does not refer to physical strength but rather character strengths. MBSP is associated with the writings of Ryan Niemiec. His mindfulness course is written not as a self-help guide but rather a group-help guide (it assumes that the reader is going to run a mindfulness small group). His Kindle version of the book contains a link to a set of audio meditations that need to be unlocked with a password supplied along with the book. Go to Order page. There is a freely available Christian course covering similar material available at this Web page: www.TheCharacterCourse.com. |
| MBSR | Stands for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. MBSR is associated with the writings of Jon Kabat-Zinn. Though Kabat-Zinn is clearly a great researcher and a person of goodwill his meditations are connected to the concept of Yoga which make them problematic for Christians. A number of Christians have expressed the view that some Yoga teachers promote eastern religion by the back door. People have complaints such as “Why is the Yoga teacher making me say this long sentence in foreign language?” Or simply “Should I be doing this?” Clearly such worries are not helpful if you are trying to relax through meditation. You can find a full debate on whether Yoga and Christianity are compatible on this Web page |
| Monkey Mind | The term “Monkey Mind” is a commonly used metaphor for having a scattered mind that is opposite of the calm collected mind of the experienced meditator. |
