ACT and Mindfulness gained popularity in the last decade or so in psychotherapeutic and scientific circles. Essentially, the key ingredients of mindfulness are thousands of years old and come from India and Asia, especially through Buddhists who have been aware of the benefits in improving life in a way that can been seen (if you know where to look) in most psychotherapies today. In fact, Morita therapy came from Japan in the 1920’s, contemporary to Freud, and used Mindfulness. Dr. Furr came to Mindfulness through his own research, which provided evidence of the benefits of Mindfulness on virtually anyone open and willing to embrace its usefulness. Dr. Furr has also taught classes in Mindfulness to help people step out of “automatic-pilot” and into the moment at hand, the only time we truly have to make a change.

Many studies and clinical experience have shown Mindfulness to help with:

• Depression
• Diet and exercise
• Coping and distress tolerance
• Anxiety and Worry
• Obsessive thoughts
• Sleep difficulties
• Attention in concentration (at home, work and academics)
• Substance abuse
• Anger management
• Physical illness and pain

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) both borrow heavily from the Mindfulness techniques. Dr. Furr has always successfully implemented ACT and DBT techniques to many cases presented to his practice and in Herald Square Psychology largely by asking clients to tolerate painful thoughts and feelings AND accomplishing the goals they value.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is directing awareness attention to one’s inner experience, moment by moment, without trying to change or judge that experience. That may sound simple, so simple that it may not make sense at first or seem like any big deal, but it is a BIG deal.

Put another way, mindfulness asks us to pay attention to and accept our inner experiences. Those inner experiences are things like thoughts, feelings, urges, sensations, memories, etc. The reason paying attention to it is a big deal is because we tend to judge all our experiences as either “bad” things to avoid or “good” things to have and yearn for.

Why does it matter?

Because our automatic pilot to get what we want not get what we don’t want leads to addiction, worry, depression, suicide, shame, staying in destructive relationships, staying stuck in work problems, and so on.

In therapy, we learn to be more effective in dealing with the very inner world no one can truly avoid, as much as we like to, and live the lives we value and deserve.