Zindel V. Segal

Zindel V. Segal is a specialist on depression.

When he first started working on the MBCT project, he was studying how depression alters a person's self-image. His research included measuring a depressed patient's self-image by calculating the time it took her to react to positive or negative information about her. David Jupfer, who was head of the Psychobiology of Depression Research Network of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, asked Segal to create a "maintenance" version of [cognitive therapy] which could be used to fight depression relapse after one had recovered from an acute episode (Segal, Teasdale, Williams, 2002, p.5-6). This need for a new therapy became Zindel Segal's new passion. His bio in his book Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression says he is now Head of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at the Center for Addiction and Mental health and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, where he is also Head of the Psychotherapy Program. He is a participant of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Other publications of his include Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression. He remains an active participant in convincing people there is a place for mindfulness in psychiatry and psychotherapy.