Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a type of psychotherapy that involves a combination of cognitive therapy, meditation, and the cultivation of a present-oriented, non-judgmental attitude called “mindfulness”.

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy builds upon the principles of cognitive therapy by using techniques such as mindfulness meditation to teach people to consciously pay attention to their thoughts and feelings without placing any judgments upon them.

This approach helps people review their thoughts without getting caught up in what could have been or might occur in the future. MBCT encourages clarity of thought and provides you the tools needed to more easily let go of negative thoughts instead of letting them feed your depression.

Much like with cognitive therapy, MBCT operates on the theory that if you have a history of depression and become distressed, you are likely to return to those automatic cognitive processes that triggered a depressive episode in the past.

The combination of mindfulness and cognitive therapy is what makes MBCT so effective. Mindfulness helps you observe and identify your feelings while cognitive therapy teaches you to interrupt automatic thought processes and work through feelings in a healthy way. MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT both help us become more aware of habitual reactions and help us relate to ourselves in a new way to interrupt this cycle and create more choices in life. Maybe upon reflection, we realize that reacting to the guy who cut us off that way only increased our stress and didn’t make a difference to the other driver, maybe even just angering him more. So in the future, we become more aware of this reaction by noticing our hands white-knuckling the steering wheel or heart racing alerting us to the stress reaction occurring. 

In that moment we are present and are sitting in that space between stimulus and response. We then choose to take a few deep breaths, let our shoulders relax a bit, and even consider the unpleasant state the other driver must be in to be driving that way. Maybe we even wish him well, because if he was, he wouldn’t be driving that way.