Dr. Maria Elvira Vague, specialist in Psychology and member of Top Doctors, offers during the month of May a free Mindfulness course.
As mental health professionals it is our duty to collaborate to the maximum, together with the rest of health professionals, in the fight against the current pandemic generated by COVID-19.
Naturally, we must strictly follow the guidelines of the health authorities regarding the preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic measures to be followed, and strive to ensure that patients and their families fully understand and comply with them. However, it must be recognized that patients with neuroses, such as anxiety, phobias, obsessions, etc., may be more likely to suffer from neuroses. present psychopathological and behavioral peculiarities that deserve special attention at this time.
People with depression and anxiety, especially vulnerable in the COVID-19 crisis.
Due to the quarantine, this type of people, especially vulnerable to stress, worsen their anxious-depressive symptomatology, which can cause a difficult family coexistence, a decompensation of their pathology, with the possibility of behavioral alterations and autolytic risk.
Therefore, it is necessary to avoid by all means and based on current scientific evidence, that patients with this type of disorders and who are undergoing therapy, abandon it due to quarantine.
On the other hand, people who, after undergoing therapy, or without the need to suffer from a mood disorder, were doing some kind of mindfulness-based program, such as MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) or MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) should continue with the program, and can do so telematically. Let us remember that none of these programs are, nor are they intended to be, nor do they replace a psychological or psychiatric treatment, but they are a psycho-educational approach that teaches participants to practice Mindfulness within the context of mind-body medicine with the purpose of reducing stress, in MBSR, or sadness, in MBCT, and thus improve overall health. Mindfulness then becomes a powerful ally in any treatment process that the patient is receiving or has just received.
Mindfulness, a very beneficial therapy for adapting to changes in routines and rhythms of life.
Since the establishment of the MBSR program in 1979, Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues have taught more than 10,000 people to practice Mindfulness and have developed an enormous variety of programs to train professionals. It is estimated that in the U.S. about 5,000 health professionals have been trained in these programs, of which about 30-40% are physicians.
From MBCT-Spain we encourage all those people who have gone through a neurotic process, with or without disorder, and had started a program based on Mindfulness before this pandemic not to abandon it, and that those people who feel especially vulnerable in a state of confinement are encouraged to take the program.
We encourage all people in these times of change of routines and rhythm of life, of confinement and isolation at home 24 hours a day, who want to find out about this type of program, to connect with one of the accredited instructors in their geographic area or with me directly.
We don’t know how long this will last and how it will end. But we do know that the worry is extra, and we know that we don’t need to carry the weight of uncertainty of the future, but simply do whatever it takes to contain contagions, and stop, and be present. And adapt.
Maybe then we can discover some hidden opportunity in what is happening to us. And trust. Trust not that tomorrow will fit our idea, our dream, but trust that we will be able to solve tomorrow when it comes.
More than ever, we need to connect and meditate, so that fear and anxiety do not escalate into wasted worry, to help us return to the present, so that we can trust. On the website of MBCT-Spain you will find