Mindfulness integrated Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (MiCBT): Fact Sheet for General Practice
How do we manage the 1 in 3 people with risk factors for or experiencing mild mental illness?
MiCBT is an 8-week mindfulness program integrated with CBT that is beneficial for people with pre-clinical or clinical mental illness – delivered within individual therapy or as a group program:
- Level 1 evidence for effectiveness including for anxiety, depression, PTSD, pain, and stress.
- Sustained benefits shown for at least six months post treatment.
- Medicare rebate for eligible patients in individual therapy.
- Online group program provides an alternative cost-effective option.
MiCBT improves mental wellbeing through developing self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills:
- MiCBT is differentiated by its strong emphasis on both thinking patterns and the co-arising body sensations that comprise emotions as well as acceptance and non-reactivity for enduring behaviour change.
- Mindful and compassionate exposure to challenging emotions and associated body sensation breaks the pattern of unhelpful reactive thought and behaviour patterns.
- Four stages that start with internal awareness and flows to practical ways to engage with others (see figure).
MiCBT in:
– Individual therapy – patients learn the MiCBT skills and use the framework to explore isses and behaviours that are maintaining disorders.
– Group programs – for some patients learning MiCBT in a group format works well – sometimes as an adjunct to other treatments.
Evidence base:
Here is the link to our research on the effectiveness of MiCBT https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360967318
Additional research on the use of MiCBT in various clinical settings:
- anxiety and depression in pregnant women (Yazdanimehr et al., 2016)DOI: 10.15171/jcs.2016.021
- women with multiple sclerosis (Bahrani et al., 2017)
- men and women with type 2 diabetes (Sohrabi et al., 2022) https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-022-00026-6
- chronic pain (Cayoun et al., 2020)
- pain self-efficacy in patients with breast cancer (Mozafari-Motlagh et al., 2019)
- reduction of anxiety, depression and fatigue while improving sleep quality and hope in patients with multiple sclerosis (Pouyanfard et al., 2020)
- reducing substance addiction compared to established treatment (Wickham, 2013)
- sports-anxiety and pessimism and increasing flow in competitive athletes (Scott‐Hamilton et al., 2016)DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.2015-0020
- improved gene expression (IncRNA) in women with perinatal depression who received training in MiCBT (Wang et al., 2021)https://doi.org/10.1002/jcla.23890
- Investment for client:
- Two-hour group sessions online – Evening classes – 6pm to 8pm AEST – Day classes – 12-2pm AEST
- Daily meditation practice
- $450 (concession/financial hardship fees available).
- Start dates: Check website.