Randye J. Semple and Jennifer Lee: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children: A Manual for Treating Childhood Anxiety

Excerpt

The nascent field of mindfulness psychology has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade (Brown et al. 2007). Indeed, the application of technologies described in the earliest mindfulness-based interventions, most notably Kabat-Zinn’s (1990) seminal Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), has now been adopted for numerous other populations. Even more recent than the various incarnations of mindfulness-based intervention with adults are the utilization and study of these techniques with children and adolescents. The growth of interest in mindfulness interventions with youth is evidenced by research initiatives taking place at such places as the University of California Los Angeles Mindful Awareness Research Center and the entire practitioner-oriented books dedicated to the topic (Greco and Hayes 2008). However, despite this surge of interest from scientists and practitioners alike, there are, to date, only a few commercially available, evidence-supported, manualized treatment protocols on the topic. The field of mindfulness-based interventions for youth needs such manuals in order to replicate findings to advance the science and to disseminate this intervention technology. …