Introduction to Mindfulness - Dean Amory

of these domains of experience, without judging themselves, without
suppressing or running away from their experience, and to disengage
from familiar negative thinking patterns that heighten distress and
inevitably lead to self-destructive coping strategies.
The long term objective of this practice was to enable participants to
be aware of those thoughts, feelings, urges and subtle behaviour
patterns that led to relapse and to enable them to cope with their
vulnerabilities in a more creative way.
The Deora program was an 8-week structured course based on Jon
Kabat-Zinn’s (1990) Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
course. This course was designed by Kabat-Zinn to teach patients in a
general hospital setting to cope with stress and physical pain. It
incorporates an introduction to basic meditation techniques, Hatha
Yoga, Body-Scan training and stress management. In addition to
these elements that constitute MBSR, the Deora program also
incorporates elements of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy
(MBCT) - a program that adapts mindfulness training for individuals
recovering from severe mental health problems and incorporates
some generic cognitive therapy skills training (Segal et al., 2002). The
evidence base for both of these programs is considerable (see for
example, Baer (2006) for a review of the effectiveness of mindfulness
training with different care groups).
In recent years, Alan Marlatt and his colleagues in Seattle
Washington, USA have been incorporating mindfulness in their
approach to relapse prevention with addicted people. They have just
produced a course which combines core strategies to prevent relapse
within the 8 week course structure developed by Kabat-Zinn. They
are calling their program “Mindfulness-based Relapse Prevention”.
The authors met with Alan Marlatt and had some training in his
approach to input into their work in Deora. Any future developments
of this approach would do well to consider adopting his approach, as
it is customised particularly for people in recovery from drug
addiction, and incorporates evidence-based relapse prevention
strategies.
92