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What is happiness? Most of us mistakenly believe that the presence of transitory pleasure, and the absence of immediate pain, is genuine happiness. For instance, when we get a raise at work, and there is no obvious suffering present in our minds, we feel happy. But this type of happiness is transitory and fleeting (e.g., two days later your happiness about the increase in your salary has somehow worn off). What if true happiness and psychological flourishing are much more than simple fluctuations in our levels of transitory pleasure and pain?

Authentic happiness comes from learning to effectively work with your own mind. Modern mindfulness meditation techniques are the primary vehicle of learning to work with thought and emotion. Mindfulness is not necessarily a spiritual practice of any kind. For the last twenty years, modern psychology and mind science have been researching the effects of mindfulness meditation. Clinical psychology has utilized this research by creating therapies centered around the cultivation of mindfulness (i.e., mindfulness based cognitive therapies). More and more, in the modern era, mindfulness is being conceptualized as a kind of cognitive technology. 

Utilizing the cultivation of mindful awareness as a clinical platform, AMI's mindfulness based cognitive psychotherapy is structured into three distinct phases: 

1. The first phase of AMI's mindfulness based cognitive therapy (or MBCT) is the development of psychological awareness. This increase in a client's awareness of their own thoughts and emotions is powered by the cultivation of mindfulness. Using both informal and formal mindfulness techniques, the client begins to become profoundly aware of all their thoughts, emotions, judgments, opinions, memories, fantasies, and images. The client also learns to stop automatically identifying with and getting "all caught up in" everything they think and feel. The client learns to create some sense of space between them and all their thoughts and emotions. Moreover, because he or she learns to stop grasping at thought and emotion, the client becomes distinctly aware that they are something other than all the things they think and feel. They are something other than all their mental constructs, self-identities, masks, and defenses. This leads to a powerful question: if I can grasp and release my thoughts and emotions, than clearly what I think and feel are not absolute and inherent parts of me; thus if I am not what I think and feel - then what am I? 

2. The second phase of AMI's mindfulness based cognitive psychotherapy is the development of mental clarity and healthy behavior. Aristotle once said, “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way… you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” This second stage is a deliberate and liberating process of examining the client's major behavioral patterns and then asking, "Will this behavior pattern produce happiness, neutrality, or sorrow in my life?" Since all human behavior begins as thought and/or emotion, if a behavior is unhealthy it undoubtedly has unhealthy thoughts and emotions underneath it. For all the behavioral patterns that produce sorrow, the psychological motivation underlying those behaviors (thought and emotion) is sought out and analyzed. Using mindfulness and a deep consideration of personal ethics, the client is than encouraged to cultivate healthier thoughts and emotions which will then yield healthier behaviors. Additionally, as Aristotle pointed out, this also works in the opposite direction: healthier behaviors can lead to healthier thoughts and emotions. This stage, then, accomplishes two primary things: 1). it uproots and begins to dispel the unhealthy thoughts and emotions that are at the heart of a client's negative behavior patterns, 2). it simultaneously develops positive and healthy thoughts and emotions which then yield healthier behaviors. The effect of these new healthier behaviors (along with the elimination of some of the unhealthy behaviors) now begins to create a distinct mind state characterized by an increased sense of stability, calm, balance, peace, and happiness.  

3. The final phase of AMI's mindfulness based cognitive psychotherapy is the cultivation of penetrative insight. As Caitriona Reed said, “It is by the patience you call forth by returning your awareness to this very moment that you enliven your life, not by your aspiration to gain or attain. By coming home to this still center of awareness the way is made clear.” Based on the foundation of mindful awareness and upon the psychological effects of increased positive behavior and decreased negative behavior, the client has now eliminated much of the confusion, emotional overwhelm, insecurity, and disorientation that had plagued him or her. Because these afflicted mental states have been lessened, the client has automatically increased their mental awareness, clarity, and insight. With these increases in awareness, clarity, and insight the client is now capable of making profound changes in his or her life. The client is now capable of working with their own mind.