Mindfulness has been described as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment to moment.

It has long been of central importance in the Buddhist tradition, and the methods of cultivating mindfulness through meditation have been in use within that tradition for two and a half thousand years.

Until recently, mindfulness has been relatively unfamiliar in Western society, particularly within healthcare. The work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, however, has drawn on Buddhist teaching by offering it in such a way as to make it acceptable to the medical, psychological and scientific world. His major contribution has been the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme. This is an 8-week programme, the core of which is the practice of meditation, and which was developed in a medical setting for populations with a wide range of chronic pain and stress-related problems.

Over the past twenty years, the approach has blossomed into a popular and validated means of alleviating suffering. Over two hundred and forty hospital clinics in the United States and abroad were reported to be offering stress reduction programmes based on mindfulness training by the late 1990s.

Since then, the development of mindfulness as an important way of addressing distress of many kinds has developed further. It has been incorporated into both theoretical models of different physical and psychological conditions, and has also been applied to a range of people who might benefit from it. For example, the application of mindfulness to the ever growing problem of depression has been of enormous value in both providing a helpful way of reducing relapse and also of developing the field of cognitive therapy in new and exciting ways.

Read more about Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy .