Development of MBCT in Bangor

The development of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) took place collaboratively between Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal in Bangor and Cambridge, UK and Toronto, Canada. The first randomized trial of MBCT was published in 2000 (Teasdale et al.). This was shortly followed by a further randomized control trial (Ma & Teasdale, 2004) replicating the result that MBCT approximately halves the expected relapse rate in recovered patients with three or more episodes of depression over a year long follow-up period.

On the basis of these first two randomized controlled trials of MBCT the approach was recommended in 2004 by the UK’s best practice advisory board for the NHS – the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE 2004) - as a treatment of choice for preventing future depression in those individuals who have experienced three or more episodes. In 2009 this guidance was updated to an area of ‘high priority’.

References

Ma, S. H., & Teasdale, J. D. (2004). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: replication and exploration of differential relapse prevention effects. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, 31–40.

National Institute for Clinical Excellence. (2004). Depression: Management of depression in primary and secondary care (Clinical Guideline No. 23). Retrieved from www.nice.org.uk/
CG023NICEguideline

National Institute for Clinical Excellence. (2009). Depression: The treatment and management of depression in adults (update). Clinical guideline 90. Retrieved from http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG90.

Teasdale, J. D., Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G., Ridgeway, V. A., Soulsby, J. M., & Lau, M. A. (2000). Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 615–623.