Mindfulness

The risk of relapse and recurrence of depression for prople who have been depressed increases with each onset, and the trigger required for each subsequent episode becomes less each time depression recurs. For example a relatively small amount of negative mood can trigger an intense ongoing round of negative thoughts  and mood about oneself such as 'I am a failure', 'I am weak', 'I am worthless', that seem out of proportion to the event.

These thoughts are often accompanied by body sensations of weakness or fatigue or unexplained pain which can make you feel that you're "back to square one again". There follows a loop of seemingly endless self questioning which asks 'what has gone wrong?', 'why is this happening to me?', 'where will it all end?' Such rumination feels to the person as if it ought to help find an answer, but it only succeeds in prolonging and deepening the mood disturbance.

Research into Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy has been developed with the aim of reducing relapse and recurrence for those who are vulnerable to recurring episodes of depression. The discovery that, even when people feel well, the link between negative moods and negative thoughts remains ready to be re-activated, is of enormous importance. It means that sustaining recovery from depression depends on learning how to keep mild states of depression from spiralling out of control.