MB-EAT or Mindful Eating Conscious Living (MECL) Which Program is Best for You or Your Population?

by Char Wilkins, LCSW

I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking what is the difference between the MB-EAT program and our Mindful Eating, Conscious Living (MECL) 5-day professional training at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center in Rochester, NY, August 4-9, 2012. I have the unique qualification of having taught both the MB-EAT program and the Mindful Eating, Conscious Living training which I co-teach with Jan Chozen Bays, MD, so I feel I can speak to some of the differences which may help you decide if our training is right for you.

Jan and I see mindfulness as the base from which we work- the heart of the work.  We recognize that many professionals have extensive skills in some areas but need help with mindful eating skills, so Jan and I created this training based on Jan’s book, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food. We have uniquely brought Jan’s deep understanding of mindfulness and meditation, her extensive work with distressed eating, and her medical background together with my individual and group therapeutic experience working with people with distressed eating patterns, MBSR and MBCT training, and meditation practice.

The professional training we offer is clearly based in a mindfulness approach that addresses thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors associated with distressed eating, and provides practical, doable exercises and simple meditations that you can weave into your individual work or into a group program. In our training we don’t teach about calories or how to lose weight, nor do we talk about dietary plans. This is different from most trainings. We do talk about quality of food, types of food the body must have, hunger and fullness, and many other related issues. We are focused on helping people change their relationship to food, eating and their bodies. We provide you with a six-session sample curriculum, yours to adapt to your needs, and CDs that contain meditations and exercises.

MB-EAT, Jean Kristeller’s research initiative, has illuminated some important points with a focus on weight loss, one of the techniques used being mindfulness. For some professionals difficulties arose in teaching a mindfulness approach while instructing patients to reduce calories, use pedometers and assess weight loss. Professionals got confused, and patients get confused. For some people this is not a problem.  The MB-EAT program is a very structured program for groups, and many clinicians told me that they were working one-on-one and wanted the flexibility to bring mindful eating to their individual patients. This is simply a different approach and very valuable for some populations.

Jan and I feel that your own personal experience of going through this hands-on training, doing the eating and mindfulness exercises, hearing your colleagues’ responses and questions, practicing meditation, and being in a supportive community will not only enhance your learning but give you confidence to teach mindful eating to your clients. In teaching mindful eating skills you will provide patients with skills for a lifetime which they can begin again and again if need be, without the “side effects” of yoyo dieting. Additionally, in becoming mindful it spills into all aspects of their life- it becomes a way of being, rather than constantly doing or trying another fad or diet.

I hope this is helpful and will help you choose the program that is best suited to you and the population you serve

Char Wilkins, LCSW is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist who specializes in working with women who have experienced childhood abuse and trauma, and those who suffer with depression, anxiety and disordered eating. She trains professionals in the application of mindfulness in psychotherapy, advanced MBCT skills, mindful eating, and was awarded teacher certification in MBSR by the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical School, Worcester, MA. Char serves on the Board of Directors for The Center for Mindful Eating and is the owner/director of the Center for Mindful Living, LLC in Connecticut.

CBC News Segment on Mindfulness and Mental Illness Features MBCT and Zindel Segal

Looking for a nice introduction to how and why mindfulness might be helpful in regard to depression and anxiety? This segment from CBC’s The Journal program does a great job of noting how mindfulness has become a standard approach to dealing with mood disorders and features one of the developers of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Zindel Segal talking about how it all works.

Lead Author Zindel Segal Comments on Study Comparing MBCT to Antidepressants

Zindel Segal, Ph.D.

Zindel Segal of the University of Toronto, lead author of a recent study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry that found no difference between antidepressant medication and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in preventing relapse in depression, spoke with us recently and offered this commentary on the implications of his study.

“With the growing recognition that major depression is a recurrent disorder, patients need treatment options for preventing depression from returning to their lives. Data from the community suggest that many depressed patients discontinue antidepressant medication far too soon, either because of side effect burden, or are unwilling to take medicine for years.  All depressed patients in our study were first treated with an antidepressant until their symptoms remitted.  They were then randomly assigned to come off their medication and receive MBCT; come off their medication and receive a placebo; or stay on their medication. The novelty here lies in comparing the effectiveness of sequencing pharmacological and psychological treatments versus maintaining the same treatment – antidepressants – over time

“Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy teaches skills in emotion regulation so that patients can monitor possible relapse triggers as well as adopt lifestyle changes conducive to sustaining mood balance.  Clinical assessments were conducted at regular intervals, and over an 18 month period, relapse rates for patients in the MBCT group did not differ from patients receiving antidepressants, with both in the 30% range.

“The real world implications of these findings bear directly on the front line treatment of depression.  For that sizeable group of patients who are unwilling or unable to tolerate maintenance antidepressant treatment, MBCT offers equal protection from relapse.  An additional benefite is that this strategy of sequential intervention– offering pharmacological and psychological interventions– may keep more patients in treatment and thereby reduce the high risk of recurrence that is characteristic of this disorder.”

Dr. Segal will be co-leading a 5-day professional training in MBCT through the UCSD Center for Mindfulness in Northern California in February 2011. For more details, see the Professional Training website.

 

 

New Study Highlights the Relationship Between Rumination and Mindfulness

A study just published in the Springer journal Mindfulness by Raes and Williams, explores the relationship between rumination and mindfulness. From the abstract: “when controlling for current depressive symptoms and prior history of depression, mindfulness was significantly negatively correlated with rumination, but it was only associated with the extent to which rumination was experienced as uncontrollable, not with global levels of rumination. Furthermore, mindfulness moderated the relationship between global levels of rumination and uncontrollability of rumination, consistent with the suggestion that high dispositional mindfulness reduces the extent to which ruminative reactions tend to escalate into self-perpetuating and uncontrollable ruminative cycles.”

The authors note that “The specific hypothesis we examined was based on MBCT’s underlying rationale; that rumination occurs to some extent as a common human experience, but becomes particularly dysfunctional when it is excessive and uncontrollable. The idea is that greater skill in mindful awareness, either naturally occurring or cultivated in meditation practices, does not mean that people do not ruminate, but that they are better at noticing it when it occurs, so that they subsequently can disengage from it.”

These findings highlight that it’s not the presence of rumination itself that is the primary issue, but instead it is the person’s relationship with the ruminative thoughts (i.e. seeing them as uncontrollable) that is key. Therefore, one would assume that through formally and systematically cultivating mindfulness (through MBCT or other mindfulness-based interventions), one can cultivate a different (more harmonious and accepting) relationship with rumination and, ultimately, reduce suffering.

New Study Shows MBCT as Good as Antidepressants for Preventing Depressive Relapse

Great new study that shows Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) can be as effective as antidepressant medication for preventing relapse in depression. Dr. Zindel Segal, lead author of the study and co-developer of MBCT describes mindfulness training as: “It’s kind of like going like going to the gym and working a muscle, except in this case you’re not working a muscle in your body, you’re working the muscles in your brain that help you understand and control your emotions.”

Springer Publishes New Journal: Mindfulness

How nice to see a major publishing firm come out with a scientific journal dedicated solely to the study of mindfulness. The first volume contains several interesting and intriguing articles.

Mindfulness, Volume 1, 2010

Which article gets your interest? We would love to know . . .

Mindfulness in the popular press

More good press for mindfulness, this time from cnn.com.