Mindfulness

Book excerpt: Mindfulness: A Kindly Approach to Being with Cancer offers people with cancer a means to bring mindfulness and kindliness into their lives, to help them cope with the challenge of a life-threatening illness. Adapts Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), an approach with a strong evidence base for people with recurrent depression, for the needs and challenges of people with cancer Presents the standard 8-week course of MBCT for cancer in a flexible format that is designed to suit each reader’s own particular timescale, context and situation Based on more than 15 years of program development and clinical application by the author, and the work and experience of mindfulness teachers in other cancer centres around the world Provides specific practices and approaches tailored to support the different phases of a cancer experience – from diagnosis and treatment to living with uncertainty and managing life with cancer Features five extended stories from people personally affected by cancer who have used mindfulness-based practices to support them in their own experience of illness, life and treatment