Introduction to Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

APN CLINICAL FOCUS SEMINAR

Friday 16th Nov, 10am-1pm

Introduction to Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT)

Presenter: 

Alice Shires, University of Technology, Sydney

About the 2018 seminars: The Anxiety Practitioners Network is pleased to bring you the 2018 series of Clinical Focus Seminars aimed at providing clinicians and clinical students with up to date information relating to different fields of anxiety treatment. These seminarswill be run by clinicians and clinical researchers who are experts in their respective fields. All presenters will include an overview of their area, issues in assessment and measurement, current approaches to treatment, future directions in research and treatment, and some illustrative case studies.

About this seminar: 

Evidence suggests that mindfulness meditation is beneficial in reducing the severity of a range of psychopathologies. The benefits have been mostly attributed to improved attention and emotion regulation. However, recent studies suggest that the active mechanisms underlying mindfulness remain unclear, despite a number of useful accounts. MiCBT is based on a clear and comprehensive model that has strong explanatory power. The co-emergence model of reinforcement (CMR) central to MiCBT has been proposed to explain the mechanisms of change observed in Mindfulness based interventions.

As mindfulness-based interventions are increasingly used to address a wide range of psychological disorders, therapists need as much training as possible with complex conditions, especially those accompanied by chronic pain and trauma history. Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT) is an established transdiagnostic intervention specifically designed to address a wide range of clinical and subclinical conditions and prevent relapse. It represents an integration of traditional CBT and mindfulness meditation in the Burmese Vipassana tradition, developed into a four-stage program.

MiCBT is one of the so-called “second-generation mindfulness-based interventions” as it was developed in a way that maximally preserves the principal teachings of Buddhist psychology while excluding Buddhist religious rituals and cultural assumptions. “Rather than a passive or ‘non-judgemental’ awareness, the SG-MBI model advocates an active and discriminative from of awareness” (Shonin and Van Gordon, 2014) New and established exposure and cognitive reappraisal techniques are tightly integrated with the practice of ethics, the four-fold cultivation of mindfulness, and the development of insight.

About the presenter:

Alice Shires is a clinical and research psychologist, Director of the UTS Psychology Clinic, and Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Health, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). She is Chair of the Australian Clinic Directors association (AAPTC) and is involved in research and development of teaching and training in clinical psychology. She has established the Mindfulness-integrated research clinic at UTS and research includes the efficacy of MiCBT in chronic pain, the process of supervision and assessment of competencies in clinical psychology, and the inclusion of mindfulness training in the clinical psychology training process. Alice is a senior trainer of MiCBT, implements MiCBT with clients, teaches MiCBT to mental health professionals and supervises clinicians during the course of their MiCBT training. She has recently co-authored The Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness‐integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (Wiley, 2018)