At the Therapy Worksheets Bookstore, check out the Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression, by Kirk Strosahl and Patricia Robinson. It's a "third wave" approach to tackling depression. Instead of challenging and replacing negative thoughts as in o.g. CBT, clients are encouraged to acknowledge and accept their moods. The concept being, depression and anxiety (covered in another workbook) are along for the ride, but you're in charge, you don't have to let them take the wheel.
I like the idea of a "third wave approach." Replacing depressing thoughts with uplifting thoughts may be helpful on a temporary basis, but it also may be setting up a power struggle between two ways of being.
ReplyDeleteTo go to a "third" place of mindful meditation, a person can let both positive and negative thinking pass through her consciousness and discover she is more than both and need not be governed by either.
Joanna Poppink, MFT
Los Angeles psychotherapist
http://eatingdisorderrecovery.com
author: Healing Your Hungry Heart, 08/11 Conari Press