Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Children

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Children (MBCT-C) was developed during an intensely uncertain time in history–shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. This chapter outlines the development of MBCT-C and offers a detailed overview of the 12-week group psychotherapy program for children. Mindfulness-based therapies, in contrast, is believed to facilitate “metacognitive awareness” or “decentering,” which describes the ability to perceive thoughts as transitory events in the mind. At the outset, mindfulness-based interventions including mindfulness-based stress reduction, dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and MBCT were filling a critical void in the compendium of more traditional cognitive-behavioral treatments. Three main themes are interwoven throughout the program. The first involves the understanding that thoughts, feelings, and body sensations are separate but related entities. The second theme focuses on differentiating between judging and describing. The third theme involves increasing awareness of the present moment by noticing past, present and future thinking.