Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Bipolar Disorder

Thilo Deckersbach, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. He serves as Director of Psychology in the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program and Director of Research in the Division of Neurotherapeutics at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has published over 95 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. His clinical research concentrates on the development of cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based treatments for bipolar disorder; his functional neuroimaging research focuses on the interaction of cognitive and emotional processes in bipolar disorder. Dr. Deckersbach has been a dedicated meditation practitioner since 2008.

Britta Hölzel, PhD, is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Medical Psychology at Charité in Berlin, Germany. She was previously a Research Fellow in the Psychiatric Neuroscience Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hölzel is a mindfulness-based stress reduction instructor and a certified yoga teacher (Sivananda Organization), and has been a dedicated yoga and meditation practitioner since 1997. Dr. Hölzel is a recipient of the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Program, and the Positive Neuroscience award from the John Templeton Foundation, among other honors. Her magnetic resonance imaging research focuses on the effects of mindfulness practice on the functional neuroanatomy of emotion regulation as well as on structural changes in the brain.

Lori Eisner, PhD is Assistant in Psychology at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Bipolar Clinic and Research Program and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Her work has been funded by the Harvard Medical School Kaplan Fellowship and the Clinical Research and Training Program. Her research has focused on the development and implementation of treatments to improve emotion regulation in people with bipolar disorder. She has examined the feasibility of a group treatment for emotion regulation that teaches mindfulness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance skills adapted from dialectical behavior therapy. Dr. Eisner has coauthored four book chapters and has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. She has been an avid yoga practitioner since 2003.

Sara W. Lazar, PhD, is Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She is a board member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. The focus of Dr. Lazar's research—which has been covered by numerous news outlets—is to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation, both in clinical settings and in healthy individuals. She has been practicing yoga and mindfulness meditation since 1994.

Andrew A. Nierenberg, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program, and Associate Director of the Depression Clinical and Research Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been listed among the Best Doctors in North America for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders since 1994, received the National Depression and Manic Depressive Association Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award, and was elected as a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Nierenberg’s research focuses on comparative effectiveness of existing treatments and the development of new treatments for mood disorders. He has published over 350 papers and 30 chapters and reviews and is a member of the editorial boards of over 15 journals.