MiCBT Institute Newsletter Vol.2.4

NEWS

NEW DELIVERY FORMAT FOR MICBT COURSES ON THE GO!

RESEARCH AT THE SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

SHARE YOUR IDEAS FOR SPECIALISED WORKSHOPS

MICBT USERS YAHOO GROUP

 All MiCBT-trained practitioners can join the Yahoo “MiCBTusers” group for discussions and exchange of information and documents, and are encouraged to use it as much as needed. For directions, please email the creator and moderator of this users group, Dr Andrew Kinsella: andrewk1901@gmail.com

MICBT GROUPS FOR CLIENTS

If you are interested in having a client group conducted in your service, either as a pilot trial or as part of your clinical program and/or professional training program, please contact:admin@mindfulness.net.au. It may be possible for a MiCBT-accredited clinician in your area to conduct such a group.

FREE WEEKLY MINDFULNESS MEDITATION GROUP

If you are operating from, or visiting, Southern Tasmania, you may be interested in attending the Thursday mindfulness meditation group. This open weekly group was established in 2004 by Dr Bruno Cayoun and colleagues to provide a non-clinical context for practice and assist mindfulness practitioners in their regular practice. 

The  venue is the MiCBT Institute, 277 Macquarie Street, Hobart.

The group room is on top floor. You may arrive between 6:00 and 6:10pm, for a 6:15pm start. The practice ends at 7pm.   

 It is free and all are welcome to attend. Although brief practice instructions are given at the start of practice, this is not a therapy group or teaching group and everyone attending is assumed to have had some prior training or exposure to mindfulness meditation. Therapists who implement a mindfulness-based therapy are particularly encouraged to attend these weekly practice sessions to keep in touch with their own practice skills and feel supported.

MICBT TRAINING SCHEDULE 2011-2012

 Last opportunity for Training this year!

There are still places available in the2-day MiCBT for Crisis Itervention and Relapse Prevention Workshop to be held in Adelaide, October 8-9 2011 .Click here for more details

Courses and Workshops 2012

MiCBT: An Introduction (2 Days)

21 - 22 April 2012 Melbourne VIC
28 - 29 April 2012 Auckland NEW ZEALAND
11 - 12 August 2012 Sydney NSW

Blended learning format: block mode face-to-face and online

21 April - 16 June 2012 Melbourne VIC / Online 
28 April - 23 June 2012 Auckland NEW ZEALAND / Online
11 August - 29 September 2012 Sydney NSW / Online 

14 July - 1 September  2012 Online 

9 -14 March 2012
16 - 21 November 2012

SNAPSHOT - GLENN BILSBORROW

Psychology has always been a fascination for me but we didn't really find each other properly until later in my life. When I left school I was going to be a mechanic! But my employer told me that he had decided not to take on another apprentice, so that was that. Needless to say, I didn't stay there long. After a few more years working, I went to university and started studying a bachelor of arts with the intention of doing psychology. I really enjoyed anthropology and English, but found first year psychology a bit dry! Overall, it seemed too far removed from everyday life, let alone people. So I changed to business.

After completing a business degree I went to work in the real world and slowly realised that it was a world of conformity and rules. The aim was to make money and everything was about making more of it. At this time I was living and working in Sydney, Australia. I worked in various capacities such as financial planner and as an advisor to small business. So eventually, in 1991, my partner and I decided to move to Tasmania where her family was and where we could raise our two boys in a place that was a little more removed from the rat-race.

During all these years of work, I had always been interested in the journey of self-understanding as well. In my early 20s I discovered self help books teaching such things as Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy. I read as many books as I could find. I wanted to know about myself and my role in this world. I went to see therapists. The first one was good. The second was not as good. I wasn’t sure that therapists were able to offer anything substantial and I was concerned that it perhaps wasn’t really a 'science'. Maybe we just turn out to be who we were going to be despite 'psychology'? 

But I was a scientist at heart, and business and science are worlds apart. So, one day I decided to go back to psychology. I had decided by this time that psychology did have something to offer when done properly. I wanted to do it properly. I restarted the arts degree part-time and got into honours at the University of Tasmania.  I spent a few years working on my Doctorate and became a registered psychologist

My philosophy in life had always been that of a generalist. I wanted to gather knowledge about a wide range of things and apply that to my vocation, whatever that was. Being a psychologist was a way of utilising that experience; use my own journey and the variety of things I learned in life, and at university, to help those who are in need. So I became a specialist, which now actually sits well. To that role I bring all the differing perspectives of living and working in various places. Since working as a psychologist, I have felt fulfilled and happy. There is not a day that goes by where I don't feel grateful for my life. I used to worry that one day it would all go pear-shaped and not last. But over time I learned to trust that it wouldn't.  Of course there have been bad times. But overall, life has really been good to me.

In all those early years where I was learning about life and myself, funnily enough, I was never drawn into mindfulness in a formal way. Back in the 80s I read a book called "The relaxation response" and I was intrigued by how meditation affected the mind and body. I also read and absorbed books on visualisation and many other techniques that helped to still the mind. I applied these to my life in a casual way. One outlined a technique that I tried and found affected me profoundly. It started off small, only a slight change. Over time, as I practiced it, I was able to ‘hold’ this sensation of letting go. I had learned to be equanimous for short periods in a focussed way by letting go of an attachment to sensations in the body.  I still use it and it led me to have an affinity later with the practice of mindfulness. I also learned a long time ago, of the impermanence of emotion and the notion that we are often rooted in the present by emotion, but have to also have an eye to the fact that this will change.

I met Bruno in 2000 and was struck by his calm, his dedication and the clarity he brought to things. He wanted me to understand mindfulness in a deeper way by practice. His view was that if you have found something this good, you want others you care about to also benefit from it. I resisted. “What was the point of working hard on something designed to make you happier in your life when you are already happy?” I thought. Over time, we had chats about his methods and I could see a definite advantage in utilising a more pervasive mindfulness approach with clients.

I heard others, including Jon Kabat-Zinn, talking about the benefits of mindfulness and I had read much on it. So I began to practice it more formally. Since then, it has been imbedded in my work with clients. What I like about this approach is that it is experiential. It is one's own experience and not that of another who may be trying to help you change your understanding of what you experience. It asks you to do it to yourself, without a 'middle man'.  In MiCBT, mindfulness is not on the periphery, it is central. When I thought about it, I realised that traditional CBT is often simply trying to put a wedge between someone and their troublesome thoughts. Why not start deeper; why not work on it yourself through the practice of mindfulness? Above all, being mindful really does impact on what you bring to therapy. I think Bruno has truly brought mindfulness to psychotherapy in a unique and powerful way and I am grateful for his wisdom.

Glenn Bilsborrow
Registered Psychologist, Macquarie Psychology
Hobart, TAS Australia

INTEREST GROUP MEETING

Interest group meetings in Southern Tasmania are held at the MiCBT Institute building and start with a short mindfulness meditation practice.

Date: Wednesday 3rd August 2011
Time: 6:00 to 7:30pm
Place: MiCBT Institute Building (Top floor) 277 Macquarie St, Hobart, TAS, Australia

RESEARCH ARTICLE FOR DISCUSSION

 Mindfulness, by Any Other Name......: Trials and Tribulations of Satî in Western Psychology and Science”

By Paul Grossman¹ and Nicholas T. Van Dam²

^{1 Dept of Psychosomatic Medicine, Division of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland}

^{2 Dept of Psychology, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA}

Published in May 2011 in peer-reviewed journal: Contemporary Buddhism, 12, 219-239.

Comment by Dr B. A. Cayoun

I would like to thank the authors, Paul Grossman and Nicholas Van Dam, for writing such a wonderful, useful and, indeed, gutsy article! I also thank them very much for notifying me of its publication. Many authors use the word “mindfulness” interchangeably with the word “awareness”, which is bound to lead to confusion, especially when it comes to designing measurement tools. Several self-report questionnaires have been designed to help measure the construct and effects of mindfulness, which the authors discuss vigorously. In particular, they demonstrate several flaws in two of the most used instruments, the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; from Ruth Baer et al., 2006) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; from Brown & Ryan, 2003). They ask the most basic and most pertinent question: “How do you know how mindful you are?” My personal experience and observations of clients and trainees is that the more mindful we become, the more able we are to perceive our lack of mindfulness. Accordingly, as we become more mindful, we are likely to be increasingly “severe” in our self-assessment of mindfulness skills, potentially resulting in self-report scores that are not markedly different to scores of novices—who may not have yet developed as much appreciation of the construct. While there is an exponential amount of published papers on the topic of mindfulness, not many provide a real contribution to our clinical work as does this article. The ease of readability of this paper makes it a real pleasure to read and, like me, you won’t easily put it down once you start!     

At least 4 studies have specifically shown the lack of adequacy in measuring the construct of mindfulness with self-report questionnaires. Given the dilemma posed by currently published mindfulness questionnaires, what other valid and reliable ways could we use for this purpose? 

CPD POINTS

Psychologists who attend these meetings can claim 1.5 CPD hour. You may also wish to be a contact person to create your own meetings in your area. Please let us know and we will do our best to support you.

IN YOUR DIARY!

October Meeting in Hobart: Wednesday 05/10/2011 

For interest group meetings occurring in other areas, please contact group convenors via: http://www.mindfulness.net.au/professional-interest-groups