Mindfulness Institute

“Life does not consist mainly – or even largely – of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that are forever blowing through one’s mind.”

– Mark Twain

Mindfulness Institute – a psychology clinic offering individual and group therapy that is mindfulness informed.

 

We are highly trained in mindfulness-integrated cognitive behaviour therapy (MiCBT) in addition to our generalist psychology professional training. Our research – published in Frontiers in Psychiatry – demonstrates the effectiveness of our mindfulness-based approach. 

We provide client centred care that works with the underlying processes that cause and maintain psychological distress associated with a wide range of issues including:

     

     

    • Anxiety disorders: generalised anxiety, social anxiety, OCD
    • Mood disorders: depression, bipolar affective disorder
    • Trauma: traumatic stress and PTSD
    • Substance use disorders
    • Work stress
    • Relationships: family; partner; workplace
    • Pain management
    • Life transitions: transitions in work; transitions to parenthood; end of career transitions

    Group programs for 2024

    NEXT PROGRAM – COMMENCING April 17th 2024
     live online 8 weeks  6-8pm

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    Refresher Program

    NEXT PROGRAM – COMMENCES March 2024 

    4 weeks 12.30-1.30pm

    Are you feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious? Are you feeling low or behaving poorly to those around you?

    Mindfulness integrated with CBT offers a wonderful toolkit that helps to understand the relationship between thinking and emotions and the processes that create and maintain unhelpful habits. The skills enable  deep levels of change; a path to achieving peace of mind.  They may be learned in the process of individual therapy (preferred for complex and acute problems) or through group work. Our program has been subjected to to robust research demonstrating its effectiveness across a broad range of issues.

    Contact us for individual psychology sessions or formal mindfulness training.

    Mindfulness Therapists Support

    Monthly MiCBT Interest and Research Group – Peer supervision meeting and research update – 3rd Thursday of each month. Contact Dr Sarah Francis for more information

    8 Week Program

    Our group programs teach MiCBT over 8 weeks online. The group programs are designed to teach the skills to manage thought processes and emotional reactivity. Participants need to be willing to commit to regular daily mindfulness meditation practice. The group programs do not deal with individual issues.

    Refresher Programs and Ongoing Support

    Refresher programs are designed for those who have learned the MiCBT skills and need a refresher.

    We also offer three session of lightly guided meditations each week to support people to maintain their skills – see members page for the link.

    Our Services

    Training, therapy and group mindfulness sessions

    Group Training Programs

    Individual Therapy

    Ongoing Support

    Employee Assistance Program

    Support for Organisations

    What is Mindfulness?

    Mindfulness enables us to remember to stay fully aware of only what is actually happening in the present both internally and externally – with no bias and no judgement.  Mindfulness is a tool that helps us to observe and become aware of our own mental mechanisms.  We cannot change what we are not aware of. With mindfulness we learn to manage persistent worrying or “mind-wandering” thinking and emotional reactivity.

    Our approach uses Mindfulness-Integrated Cognitive Behavoiur Therapy (MiCBT), developed by Dr Bruno Cayoun (Cayoun, 2011, 2015) and Cayoun, Francis and Shires 2019.

    What is MiCBT

    Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT) places a strong emphasis on developing both the ability to think about our thinking (metacognitive awareness) AND the ability to notice what is happening in our bodies when we are thinking and reacting (interoceptive awareness) . MiCBT training integrates mindfulness training (as taught in Vipassana traditions) with contemporary evidence based approaches of western psychology (CBT and cognitive neurobiology).

    MiCBT is structured in 4-stages.

    • Stage 1 teaches mindfulness skills to improve attention to and understanding of thoughts and body sensations.
    • Stage 2 teaches how to apply these skills to the challenges of daily life helping us to tackle previously avoided situations.
    • Stage 3 specifically engages the mindfulness skills in interpersonal communication and relationship issues.
    • Stage 4 explores personal ethics from a mindfulness perspective and uses compassion training to develop empathic understanding of ourselves and others.

    Changing unhelpful or unwanted habits becomes easier as mindfulness skills are consolidated and integrated into daily life. We learn to understand and accept the process of thinking and sensing and to have a different perspective on troublesome thoughts and reactions. As self understanding increases we also understand others better.

    We provide mindfulness training for individuals, groups and organisations.

    Refresher MiCBT Program

    Refresher MiCBT Program

    4-week program to refresh skills and understanding of MiCBT On completion of this program through active engagement with the mindfulness exercises participants will be able to: • enhance their daily mindfulness skills • refresh their understanding of the relationship...

    Mindfulness-integrated CBT Online Program

    Mindfulness-integrated CBT Online Program

    • Are you feeling you've lost direction, questioning how you're living, worrying more than usual and feeling anxious - feeling stressed about the future? • Are you noticing that you're eating or drinking more than usual? • Are you feeling an overall drop in your mood...

    Why body scan is important

    Why body scan is important

    In our programs we spend a lot of time learning to scan the body in great detail - so that we can detect even subtle changes in the body. Why is this helpful? We feel our emotions through the body - we say I FEEL sad/anxious/happy...we dont say "I think anxious"! To...

    Stressed? Low mood?

    Eating or drinking too much? Impatient and snappy? Consider joining our MiCBT Program.