Willem Kuyken
Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford, Department of Psychiatry

If you look around you in any public space – a train station, cafe, bus stop, or park – every fifth person you see will be directly affected by depression in their lifetime.

More than likely, all of us will be affected indirectly, perhaps through seeing a family member, friend, or co-worker suffer depression, or indeed suffering ourselves.

Depression is a debilitating, often a recurrent mental health disorder that not only causes untold human suffering but also incurs great costs to our society.

Abraham Lincoln, Sylvia Plath, Robert Oppenheimer, Marcus Trescothick, Alastair Campbell, Ruby Wax, and Winston Churchill are just a few of the well-known people who have been affected.

At the Oxford Mindfulness Centre (OMC), which is part of the University of Oxford, our mission is to prevent depression and enhance human potential through the therapeutic use of mindfulness.

We focus our efforts on research, training mindfulness teachers, offering a range of mindfulness courses and engaging in advocacy and policy work.

We hear a lot about mindfulness, but what is it and how can it help people with recurrent depression?

Mindfulness is an awareness, underpinned by ethics, that enables us to engage with the world in ways that are more compassionate and responsive.

It is a willingness and capacity to be present with events and experiences, viewing them with discernment, curiosity, and kindness.

Mindfulness uses ancient practices to train attention and reshape the mind.

At the OMC, we use this practice to provide a contemporary approach to helping people with recurrent depression.

Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal developed an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) programme.

The course helps people with recurrent depression to break out of the pattern by helping them learn to recognise and step out of habits of thinking and behaviour that characterise depression.

Randomised trials conducted in Oxford have led to MBCT being recommended by The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment.

Just last week, the first large-scale study comparing MBCT with taking antidepressant medication, published in The Lancet, suggests that MBCT could offer an alternative to antidepressants for millions of people.

Our Wellcome Trust-funded work is exploring whether mindfulness can be used at different stages in people’s lives, including as a way of supporting young people in schools and building their resilience.

As the evidence grows and mindfulness becomes more popular, there is an even greater need for people who can teach mindfulness classes.

The Oxford Mindfulness Centre wants the next generation of mindfulness teachers to receive training grounded in science that promotes good practice.

We offer a range of training opportunities, from one-day masterclasses to a two-year Master of Studies degree in MBCT.

In this way, we can develop the next generation of MBCT teachers and trainers.

Contributing to public policy discussion is another vital part of our work.

The Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) was created in 2014 to bring policy-makers, academics, and practitioners together to explore the potential of mindfulness in key areas, such as in health, education, workplace settings, and the criminal justice system.

More than 100 parliamentarians have experienced MBCT first hand.

Our research is funded by the Wellcome Trust, National Institute for Health Research, and Mind and Life.

However, all of our other activity is funded by a not-for-profit charity, The Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.

The Foundation aims to raise funds to secure the future of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre.

Please visit our web page at oxfordmindfulness.org