Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy At BRC

At Bedrock Recovery Center, a wide variety of treatment options are available to you, including many evidence-based therapy approaches. During your initial assessment, you and your care team will discuss your treatment needs and recovery goals to decide which approaches are best for you.

One popular option is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), a proven-effective psychotherapy that combines elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with well-established mindfulness practices. MBCT can help you manage your substance use disorder or mental health disorder through the development of self-awareness, resilience, emotional regulation, and behavior modification, all of which also contribute to self-empowerment and increased well-being.

Other evidence-based and holistic treatment options at Bedrock, such as crisis stabilization and withdrawal management, peer support, medication management, group therapy, wellness activities, aftercare planning, and more, will support your recovery in additional ways.

Key Elements Of MBCT

MBCT could be thought of as an approach that adds to or strengthens cognitive behavioral therapy. It does so by giving you even more tools for identifying and addressing unhelpful beliefs and behaviors and handling difficult emotions contributing to your addiction or mental illness.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Borrowing from cognitive behavioral therapy, your therapist will help you identify and challenge negative thought patterns, or beliefs, that are contributing to unwanted behaviors and mental states.

By addressing these harmful beliefs, you can develop a more balanced and realistic perspective, reducing your symptoms and enhancing your emotional well-being.

Mindfulness Practices

Mindfulness practices and principles used in MBCT help you know yourself better, becoming more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations in the present moment. At the same time, they help you accept and appreciate the present moment.

Principles of mindfulness include:

• beginner’s mind
• letting go
• non-judgment
• non-striving
• trust
• patience
• acceptance
• gratitude

Mindfulness techniques promote a non-judgmental awareness that, over time, empowers you to respond to your experiences with compassion, rather than react out of habit.

Applications For Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

MBCT was developed to help prevent the recurrence of depressive episodes in people with a history of depression, but it has a wide range of applications outside of depression treatment.

Depression

With depression, you might fixate on negative thoughts and beliefs, self-blame or guilt, or perceived failures. However, if this has become a habit, it might be hard to recognize or to see a way out of. MBCT helps you become aware of these thoughts and beliefs, giving you the chance, and the tools, to address them.

It can also help you recognize feelings of sadness or unworthiness and respond to them in a non-judgmental, non-critical, self-compassionate way.

Bipolar Disorder

Like depression, bipolar disorder is a mood disorder characterized by depressive episodes. Unlike depression, it also involves manic episodes, or periods of increased energy, reduced sleep, racing thoughts, and other symptoms.

By cultivating the mindfulness skills taught in MBCT, people with bipolar disorder can become more attuned to their emotional state, recognize early signs of mood shifts, and develop emotional regulation. MBCT can also help address negative thoughts and beliefs feeding into depressive or manic episodes, replacing them with more realistic ones.

Substance Use Disorder

If you are living with a substance use disorder (SUD), you may knowingly or unknowingly be using drugs or alcohol to cope with difficult emotions or negative beliefs about yourself.

MBCT can help you become more aware of difficult emotions as they are forming and cope with them in healthy ways. It can also help you identify negative beliefs and replace them with more realistic ones, leading to behaviors that are healthier for you and in line with your dreams for your life.

As with difficult emotions, drug or alcohol cravings can also be overwhelming if unaddressed. MBCT’s tools, such as body-scan meditation, can help you recognize cravings early on, remain mindful, and respond in healthy ways.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

MBCT can be a valuable approach for people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), characterized by chronic, excessive worry.

MBCT’s techniques can help you identify unwanted thoughts and beliefs leading to worry and anxiety, address them and reduce rumination, and experience calmer, more balanced emotions.

Evidence For The Efficacy Of MBCT

MBCT has been found effective in treating depression, particularly in people who have experienced more than one depressive episode.

Multiple randomized controlled trials have shown MBCT can reduce depression relapse, with some studies showing similar effectiveness compared to maintenance antidepressant medication.

Research has also shown that the benefits of MBCT can help prevent addiction relapse as well as relapses of other mental health disorders, and that people continue to see improvement in their quality of life even after treatment ends.

Take The First Step Toward Recovery

If you or a loved one needs treatment for a mental health disorder or addiction, Bedrock Recovery Center can help. Call us today to begin the recovery journey.