Is mindfulness a therapy?

In Episode 3, we talk to Dr. Florian Ruths about mindfulness and mindfulness based therapies. Florian explains how mindfulness itself is not a therapy, but a practice which can invite us to change how we react to challenges and suffering. Nevertheless it has been co-opted into psychotherapeutic interventions like mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT), the effectiveness of which depend on the degree to which we continue to practice after the eight-week interventions.

Look out for Episode 6 (coming later in 2026) in which we will be giving a commentary on the therapies we've discussed so far, looking at similarities and differences, and examining this question further.