Meditation joins array of tools for depression

In search of a method to treat her clients’ depression, Elizabeth Hale-Rose has reached back some 2,500 years.

Sitting in a circle with five of her clients, the licensed clinical social worker takes a page from the teachings of the Buddha.

“Close your eyes,” she says softly. “Place your hands in your lap or on your legs … make sure your head, neck and back are aligned … that your posture embodies dignity, stability, wakefulness and willingness.”

She tells her clients to begin by attending to the sounds they hear. “You don’t have to do anything,” she says. “We are simply here and receptive to it.”

Hale-Rose practices at the Center for Psychotherapy Inc., which has offices in Old Lyme, Essex and Guilford.

The technique she is using, known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, is a cutting-edge approach to treating people with anxiety and depression. Only a handful of therapists are doing it.

Developed in the late 1990s by a team of researchers led by Zindel Segal, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Toronto, the technique has been shown to be highly effective in staving off repeated bouts of depression.

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