Huff 1

Samantha Huff

Debra Jizi

UWRT 1103

8 April 2018

Annotated Bibliography

Al-Mashat, Kasim, speaker. How Mindfulness Meditation Redefines Pain, Happiness &

Satisfaction. YouTube.com, TEDx Talks, 24 Nov. 2014,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVwLjC5etEQ

I feel like he explains how depression and anxiety in a great way without really using the

words. I feel like people are misguided by the words sometimes, but he explained and defined

those two words without the bias thoughts of the words in general. He talked people through a

mediation process to help them think more positively. He talked through his experience going

through finding his meditation of mindfulness. It is related to my project, because it takes

another view of mindfulness into meditation and he relates what he says in his view to what

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn had stated within his book Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of

Your Mind and Body to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. He left the acronym “L.O.S.T” which

“means lost in thoughts, offer loving-kindness, see and smile, and take a deep breath, and he

ended with the knowledge that none of us are alone because everyone has their issues that they

have to deal with.

I have heard many great things about the TEDx Talk videos published on the internet.

The whole point of the TEDx Talks are to let great speakers present their original ideas under the

time limit of eighteen minutes. The videos are made and sponsored by the TED Institute, where

they work with different types of companies and foundations to gather “ideators, inventors,
 Huff 2

connectors, and creators.” The speaker is Dr. Kasim Al-Mashat, who “is a Registered

Psychologist with the British Columbia College of Psychologist” and he has a “Master Degree in

Counselling Psychology.” He is certified as a “solution focused therapist”, “Canadian

counsellor”, as a teacher of “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction,” and is a “member of the

British Columbia Psychological Association.” Another reason why I say that he can be a credible

source is because while he was talking he references other doctors in psychology, like Dr. Jon

Kabat-Zinn, who is well known for the book her wrote.

Argus, Geoffrey, and Murray Thompson. “Perceived Problem Solving, Perfectionism, and

Mindful Awareness in Clinical Depression: An Exploratory Study.” Cognitive Therapy and

Research, vol. 32, no. 6, 01 Dec. 2008, pp. 745-757, doi:https://doi-

org.librarylink.uncc.edu/10.1007/s10608-006-9102-1.

After reading the abstract of article, I feel like it will show a different type of research on

the way mindfulness can impact depression. Most of the other articles and journal entries that I

have seen are based on that mindfulness itself is what helps decrease the rate of depression

moments that everyone has. This particular article states that, though it was in 2008, “little is

currently known about the role of mindfulness during a current depressive episode.” This

article gives results of “141 inpatients experiencing a clinical depressive episode.” It relates to

my inquiry project because it discusses that “mindful awareness contributed the greatest

amount of variance to depression symptom severity” during their experiment.

This website is credible because I have deeply research the editor-in-chief of the journal,

Stefan G. Hofmann, a German psychology major and is also accredited for human services

professional, “School of Psychology and Counselling.” Though I could not find anything on the
 Huff 3

two authors of the article, I have researched that most to all of his authors for the articles for the

journal have Ph.D.’s in psychology or sociology. Dr. Hofmann has many websites that he uses to

get the information out about how mindfulness can help depression and anxiety, no matter if it is

clinical or not. He is a director of psychotherapy and of the Emotion Research Laboratory at

Boston University, he is a college professor for psychology, he is the former president of the

Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and of the International Association for

Cognitive Psychotherapy. He is the associate editor of clinical psychological science. Every

single one of these associations and laboratories are all based on the research of psychology and

sociology.

Borchard, Therese. “How Does Mindfulness Reduce Depression? An Interview with John

Teasdale, Ph.D.” EverydayHealth.com, 11 Nov. 2013,

www.everydayhealth.com/columns/therese-borchard-sanity-break/how-does-mindfulness-

reduce-depression-an-interview-with-john-teasdale-ph-d/.

This website page is based on the book “The Mind Way Through Depression” by

coauthors John Teasdale, Mark Williams, and Zindel Segan, who are three psychologists. Dr.

Teasdale was asked questions like “how does being aware of what you’re doing while you’re

doing it help with depression,” and “what is the biggest obstacle for people with depression to

practice mindfulness.” He answered them through his research that he explained each answer

thoroughly. I feel like this will be a great source to add to my inquiry project because it has some

of the main questions that I have been asking myself.

To prove that this source is credible, I researched facts about the website, Therese

Borchard, and John Teasdale. Everyday Health is a website that regularly updates the latest
 Huff 4

information about medical studies and research. Their sources are “accredited and medically

reviewed by physicians and healthcare providers in active clinical practice.” This interview was

taken by Therese Borchard, who “is the founder of Project Beyond Blue,” which is an online

community for patients and people who are diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety. Her

blog, “Beyond Blue on Belief.com,” had been rated as only of the “Top Ten Depression Blog by

Health.com and Healthline.com” for seven years. She is known as one of the top ten influencers

on the “Online Depression Community by Sharecare.com.” The coauthor that was interviewed

was John Teasdale, who was “a contemporary psychologist and the cofounder of mindfulness-

based cognitive therapy. He worked at the University of Oxford, Cambridge in the “Cognition

and Brain Sciences Unit” and worked as a research scientist at Oxford’s “Department of

Psychiatry.” He has done his fair-share of research throughout his life on “the psychological

process behind emotional problems, specifically depression.” He was “recognized by the

American Psychological Association with their prestigious Distinguished Scientist Award” and

he was “elected a Fellow at the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Academy.” (all

quotation facts from GoodTherapy.org for Dr. Teasdale)

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face

Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Bantam Books, 2013.

Based on the description of the book and a few other quotes from the book that I have

heard, is seems like Dr. Kabat-Zinn made this book as a therapy guide for stress, anxiety, and

depression. Stress has been proven by others that is can be the cause of anxiety, depression,

illness, and disconnection. This book takes stress and places it at the center of the spectrum and,

from my perspective, saying that if you can control your stress than you will be happier in life.
 Huff 5

There is probably something more to it than that, but I will learn that as I continue to finish my

inquiry project. This will contribute towards my inquiry project as a set of different approaches

and therapy to help with the, possible, main cause of depression and anxiety.

Through extensive research I found out that the author, Jon Kabat-Zinn, works at the

University of Massachusetts Medical School as the “Professor of Medicine emeritus” and his

Ph.D. was in molecular biology. In 1979, he founded the “world-renowned Mindfulness-Based

Stress Reduction Clinic”, and then in 1995 he founded “the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine,

Health Care, and Society.” He wanted to establish the idea of mindfulness within the medical

field and society.

Nauman, Emily. “Three Ways Mindfulness Reduces Depression.” Greater Good, Great Good

Science Center at UC Berkeley, 2 July 2014,

greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/three_ways_mindfulness_reduces_depression.

From this article I have learned that, I personally have somewhat gone through these

steps throughout the years as I grew to accept my depression. The first way, “Being present to

the self: Learning to pause, identify, and respond,” really had me thinking about how I have seen

how my friends and I have coped with our random episodes in the past. I know that over the

years I have watched my friends and myself grow to, or continue to, be more mindful of the

feelings of others’ around us. For example, when I suddenly become depressed I do not, well at

least I try not, to let helpful criticism and negative criticism get mixed up. The second way,

“Facing fears: It’s ok to say “no”,” I feel like I can relate to because I have the hardest saying

‘no’ to anyone and when I do say ‘no’ I feel guilty about it but it takes that weight of

responsibility away, because I know that I would have only done more harm if I tried and was
 Huff 6

not ready for it. The third way, “Being present with others,” is the main one I have done, and it

has helped me so much. Relationships with my family and friends mean the world to me. I love

them and want them to be proud of me, which keeps me motivated to stay more positive. All of

this relates to my inquiry project because it gives quality information about how to maintain a

positive mindset during a depression episode and how to look at the problems from a different

perspective.

I think that this is a credible source because I have researched the author, her education,

the websites sponsors, and its university page. “Emily Nauman is a GGSC research assistant”,

but she also works as an assistant for the “Oberlin’s Psycholinguistics lab and Boston

University’s Eating Disorders Program.” She went to Oberlin College, where she “double

majored in Psychology and French” as an undergraduate. Other than information about the

author, I feel like the date that the article came out is a more recent study on things that are

happening today. The Greater Good is a nonprofitable magazine, so they must be sponsored and

receive donations from contributors that support them. As I researched into the donors and major

contributors, I saw that they all had been based on either psychology, sociology, or just mental

health in general. It had been published at the University of California, Berkeley by the

university’s GGSC (Greater Good Science Center) in 2001. Their editors and writers on their

webpage all seem to have experience with psychology or sociology and have an interest in

learning more about the subjects.