About this event
Mark Williams wrote the foreword for ‘Essential Resources for Mindfulness Teachers’, and founded the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University before he left in 2002 to take up a position at Oxford University.
As a clinical research scientist Mark pioneered the development of a whole new field of inquiry involving the integration of mindfulness-based approaches with cognitive science. During this talk Mark will be invited to reflect back on his life’s work in the field of Clinical Psychology. What were the threads that led to his focus on depression and suidicality? How did this evolve towards the development of MBCT? How did the field and his colleagues respond to the introduction of mindfulness as a potential methodology for depression prevention? How was it for him personally to take his work in the direction of mindfulness?
Over
twenty years on from the publication of the first trial of MBCT, the field of
mindfulness-based research and practice has expanded exponentially – as he looks back at
these developments, what does he see as the strengths and weaknesses of this
body of work? Looking forward to the next phase of development, what are the
potential opportunities and threats?