Introduction

Jon Kabat-Zinn was on a meditation retreat in the late '70s when he had an idea to marry science with mindfulness and bring the practice into hospitals, which then led to his redefining an important element of patient care. Kabat-Zinn is the founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the founding director of its renowned Stress Reduction Clinic, who created Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs that are used in hundreds of hospitals, clinics and labs all over the world.