ABSTRACT
How do you cope with the experience of disability, of losses in multiple domains of life, of frustrating limitations in the long term, of difficult symptoms and pain and in some cases of a deteriorating prognosis? How do you manage the intense emotions which naturally arise with this experience? How do you regulate the anxiety which arises in reaction to these emotions? How do you respond when old coping strategies are overwhelmed, outdated or disabled? How do you manage anxiogenic and depressogenic mental processes such as worry, rumination and negative thoughts? How can you change your way of life to balance the demands of self-care with the demands of family, work and society? How can you find meaning, appreciation and joy in life? These are some of the urgent problems which face people with a neuro-disability or neurological disease and with which mindfulness training offers a way of working. Rather than merely a treatment for depression and anxiety (although it is that), or specific advice for specific problems, the intention is to give people a tool, a way of meeting their own unique and unpredictable life experience moment by moment and responding wisely, kindly and skilfully to reduce stress, anxiety and depression and where possible to find meaning, appreciation and joy. In my experience, and in the emerging evidence, this is borne out, and although mindfulness training is no magic cure and is probably as effective as other therapies in reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety in the short term, it does promise a way of working with these challenges which is suitable for a range of people in a resource-efficient way, and provides people with a long-term coping strategy, and indeed a method for ongoing development, which goes beyond symptom reduction and offers people a foundation for building new ways of coping with their changed and changing situation.
