Wk1-8 Kuyken - why mindfulness
So, this question of how people come to mindfulness and how they respond to it, it's a very big question and I'll maybe start with what I know best which is.
How the group of people I work with come to mindfulness and this is people with recurrent depression. And they come because they're suffering and they're scared and they have a real fear often of becoming depressed again. That typically people in their 40’s and 50’s who had depression start in their late teens and early 20’s, they have had numerous episodes. They've tried all sorts of things, they've tried lifestyle changes, medication, possibly therapies, and they are looking for something to help them find ways of stepping out of that What feels like an inevitable downward spiral into yet another episode of depression. So they're coming because they're suffering and that, of course, is a very good motivation for wanting to do anything. Because that suffering is a way of galvanizing motivation and interest and if I'm honest, that's the way I came to mindfulness as a young man in my early 20s, late teens. I too was finding my way in the world and had a fair amount of disquiet, despair, if you want to call it that, depression possibly even. And I was traveling for work, for the World Health Organization, I was traveling in India and then Thailand and became very interested in some of the ideas. I was finding out about there and some of the kind of contemplative traditions and Buddhism. I'm trying to very helpful with my own mind and with my own path if you like. So I think your questions a very big one and I think in relation to depression, despair it's coming from a place of suffering. But there are many, many ways in which mindfulness is now being applied and so I think people are coming to it for very different reasons. And I think each of those groups of people, each of those individuals would have a whole set of different issues that they're bringing when they first encounter mindfulness.
