2 mins

Does mindfulness play a role in acceptance and commitment therapy?

Video Description

Dr Steven Mahan, a Chelsea-based clinical psychologist, describes how mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, and how this forms an important part of acceptance and commitment therapy. https://www.thechelseapsychologyclinic.com Chelsea Psychology Clinic are a group of London psychologists and psychiatrists offering private psychological therapy and psychiatry treatment from their premises across central London and Chelsea. The private therapy sessions cover the following areas: – Acceptance & Commitment Therapy – Cognitive Analytic Therapy – Cognitive-behavioural Therapy – Couples Therapy – Dialectical-behaviour Therapy – Mentalisation Based Treatment – Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy – Schema Therapy

Video Transcription

So, a large component of acceptance and commitment therapy is mindfulness. And mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment. So, often when we’re anxious or depressed, our minds tend to take us to all these different and dark places. So the way mindfulness can be used in acceptance and commitment therapy is to help us just to stay in the present moment, and that might be focusing on our breath. It might be focusing on different things that we can see and hear in the room just as a way of grounding ourselves, a way of being in the present moment to try and prevent that vicious cycle of thoughts taking us to dark places.

Dr Steven Mahan

Dr Steven Mahan

19 June 2022

"Dr Steven Mahan is a Clinical Psychologist with many years’ experience in both the NHS and private sector. He specialises in adult mental health and has worked with clients of all ages with a wide range of emotional difficulties including depression, anxiety, personality disorders, trauma, social anxiety, eating disorders, work-related stress, health anxiety, and substance misuse. Throughout his career, Dr Mahan has gained extensive experience working with clients with relationship and interpersonal difficulties. "

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Dr Elena Touroni

Dr Elena Touroni is a skilled and experienced consultant psychologist with a track record of delivering high-quality services for individuals with all common emotional difficulties and those with a diagnosis of personality disorder. She is experienced in service design and delivery, the management of multi-disciplinary teams, organisational consultancy, and development and delivery of both national and bespoke training to providers in the statutory and non-statutory sector.


Having obtained a first degree in Psychology (BSc) at the American College of Greece, she completed her doctoral training at the University of Surrey. Dr Touroni is highly experienced in the assessment and treatment of depression, anxiety, substance misuse, personality disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, adjustment disorder and relationship difficulties. She works with both individuals and couples and can offer therapy in English and Greek.


Dr Touroni has held a variety of clinical and managerial positions including as Head of Service in the NHS. Further she has held academic positions for the University of Surrey and the Institute of Mental Health lecturing on specialist postgraduate Masters and Doctorate programmes.


She is trained in several specialist therapeutic approaches such as schema therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based approaches and Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT). As well as holding a variety of NHS positions, Dr. Touroni is the co-founder of a private practice in Central London that has been a provider of psychological therapy for all common emotional difficulties including personality disorder since 2002. She is the founder and one of two directors of The Chelsea Psychology Clinic.