Depression and anxiety

Depression and anxiety are very common problems. Depression and anxiety involves both biological changes in the chemical composition of the brain as well as psychological changes in the way we think and feel. That’s why it is often useful to combine medical treatment of depression and anxiety with a psychological approaches to deal in a new way with your thoughts and feelings.

 

Treatment of depression and anxiety

Maybe your doctor has prescribed medicines for your depression and anxiety. Although these can be useful in lessening your symptoms , they do not offer a permanent cure. The effects continue as long as you are taking the pills. However, many people prefer other ways to deal with their depression and anxiety. In mindfulness-based cognitive therapy you will learn skills to help you deal with your thoughts and feelings in a different way.

 

The basic skill we are going to develop is mindfulness

Mindfulness means paying attention in a different way than you are used to: namely being attentive with precision in the present moment in a nonjudgmental way regarding your sense impressions, your thinking, feelings and physical sensations.

 

This can be trained in different ways:

•	By insight meditation (sitting and walking postures)
•	By applying mindfulness to your automatic thoughts and to your basic assumptions about yourself and the world. We call this the cognitive part of the therapy.
•	By bodily exercises such as breathing exercises, the body scan and yoga

 

In the cognitive part of this training we take a close look at which thoughts and assumptions maintain your depression, anxieties and make your pain worse. After having discovered these, we apply mindfulness to it. This combination is called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. It is an evidence-based form of therapy. Yoga is also a way to increase your mindfulness regarding your bodily and indirectly your mental feelings. In addition to this, some other evidence-based strategies besides the strategies of mindfulness for increasing your happiness will be offered. Change can only occur when you make that which has been unconscious into a conscious experience, so that you get the freedom of a real choice how to deal with your experience.

 

Homework: the importance of practicing
Together we will work on changing patterns of the mind, which have become deep-rooted habits. However, changing this will only be successful if you want to spend time and energy in learning these new skills. This approach is completely dependent on your willingness to do home assign-ments between the sessions. It means that you do the given assignment during 6 days of the week for about 45 minutes a day during the whole course (about 8-10 sessions). These assignments include among other things performing the excercises by listening to the cd's. Although you are probably busy, the assignments are an essential part of the training. Of course we can take a look together how to apply the "homework" in your daily schedule.

 

Facing difficulties
The meetings and homework can teach you how to become more fully aware in each moment of your life. The good news is that - due to developing mindfulness - your life can be more interesting, livelier and more fulfilling. On the other hand, facing what is present in this moment, can be difficult and unpleasant. It requires courage to see difficulties, but if you have the courage to recognize and acknowledge what comes in your field of awareness, in the long term this is the most effective way to reduce your feelings of unhappiness. If you become aware of unpleasant feelings, thoughts and experiences in time, at the moment of arising, you will be better able to "nip them in the bud", before they get more intense and persistent and progress into a new depression, a pattern of anxiety or makes your chronic pain more difficult to bear. In this therapy you learn to face the difficulties in a friendly way. The other good news is that these skills will be very helpful for further mental and spiritual development, beyond depression and anxiety. These are truly skills for life.

 

Patience and perseverance

Changing deep-seated patterns of the mind takes a lot of time and energy. The effects of it will not always be noted immediately. You can compare it with gardening: you have to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, ensure that they get enough water and nourishment and then patiently wait for the results. Maybe you are already familiar with this pattern when you took medication: the effects of it came later. We ask you to approach this training in the same way, with a spirit of patience and perseverance, committing yourself to put time and energy in this therapy, while accepting patiently that the fruits of your efforts will not show themselves immediately.

 

Intake interview
The intake interview is an opportunity to ask questions about this mindfulness based therapy. The therapy is on an individual basis.

Fees: The fees (78 euro for one session of 1 hour) are for the most part reimbursed by your health insurance. Intake: 30 euro

 

Location: Bosboom Toussainstraat 32, Amsterdam.

 

Info: 020-6833049 of peterbaert@hotmail.com

 

Look also at mindfulnessnu.org, the other mindfulness website of Peter Baert.

 

Trainer
Drs. Peter Baert (1952) is a (BIG and NIP) registered health care psycho-logist, therapist, authorized Vipassana meditation teacher and certified yoga teacher. He has been meditating for almost 30 years. Since 2003 he is a certified yoga teacher (Saswhita). He teaches meditation at the Dhamma-dipa meditation center in Amsterdam and is guide retreats in the country. He has done numerous shorter and long meditation retreats himself in Thailand, Birma, Nepal and the Netherlands. His teachers are among others the late Mettaviharee and U Vivekananda (Lumbini, Nepal). These retreats in particular have laid the foundation of his development as a mindfulness therapist. He completed a mindfulness training course (See True mindfulness). Besides he is part-time working at primary schools as a school psychologist. At present he is developing a mindfulness training for primary school kids. He also offers mindfulness courses to MS patients.

 

Recommendations of people who have done the training

"When I began Peter's mindfulness course my fundamental goal was to learn, in the practical sense, how to meditate. I had heard the term 'mindfulness' before, and was familiar with it, conceptually, but I had never understood that it was actually possible to improve your level of awareness. The course is very straightforward, and presented in a way that very much succeeds in bringing to life the real, tangible benefits of mindfulness training. Personally, I find that I am less anxious, and my creative productivity has noticeably increased as a result of this course."

 

Tina (35, US national)