Table 1. Brief Sessions Description of MBCT for Chronic Pain.

The Order and Session’s Title	Brief Session’s Description
Session 1: stepping out of automatic pain habits	This session included psychoeducation about the Gate Control Theory, awareness and learning about automatic pilot, and guided inquiry around these topics. The first formal meditation, the body scan, was used to begin training the mind to have the capacity to move attention at will. Finally, the three‐minute breathing space was taught as a means to further generalize the practice.
Session 2: facing the challenge	One focus of this session was to continue to enhance the client’s awareness of the connection between stress, thoughts, pain, and functioning through CBT‐oriented exercises. Getting rid of the perceptions that were automatically connected to these inefficient patterns was taught through mindfulness meditation.
Session 3: the breath as an anchor	In this session, further training was provided to understand the aspects of the pain-stress model through the practice of “Stressful Experiences Diary”, and the usual functions of the body (such as breathing) were introduced as means for the separation from negative stress-related thoughts.
Session 4: learning to stay at present	In this session, thinking related to stressful experiences was examined by the practice called “Unhelpful Habits of Mind” and clients learned, when thoughts or difficulties seem “too much”, bringing awareness to the body in mindful movement and mindful walking as a way to step out of their heads and into their bodies, tuning into the contrasts between stillness and movement. Both of these techniques were taught in this session.
Session 5: active acceptance	In this session, the process of acceptance was introduced as a way to actively train how to learn to stay with experiences, without a need to rush in and try to immediately change it, push it away, or hold on to it.
Session 6: seeing thoughts as just thoughts	The core theme of this session was to learn how to see thinking as just thinking, with thoughts ultimately being simple secretions of this thinking mind, not facts, and not the truth.
Session 7: taking care of myself	The emphasis of this session was on the development of a mindfulness maintenance plan for on‐going self‐care following the conclusion of the program.
Session 8: harnessing the power of the mind for chronic pain management	In this session, a discussion of the take‐home activity targeted identifying red flags for stress and pain flare‐ups and identifying options of nourishing activities, and using these was as a way to prevent relapse following the program.