MiCBT Institute

On May 16, 80 psychology students and clinicians gathered at Psych Café in Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate the Vietnamese launch of the MiCBT Workbook for Depression and Anxiety. 🎉

MiCBT author Bruno Cayoun joined live via Zoom from Australia to speak with the audience about the origins of MiCBT and the role of the workbook as a bridge between theory and practice.

The event was led by Thang Mai, M.Ed., NCC — translator of both Vietnamese MiCBT books, counsellor, and MiCBT Foundation Course trainee. Her vision goes beyond these translations: she is working towards teaching MiCBT to psychology students at Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City.

The next launch is in Hanoi on 6 June. 🇻🇳

Thank you to Thang Mai, to everyone at Psych Café, and to the entire Vietnamese MiCBT community. 🙏

Exciting news for the global MiCBT community!

The MiCBT Workbook for Depression and Anxiety is now available in Vietnamese — and we're celebrating!

This is the second MiCBT translation by Mai Thi Viet Thang, M.Ed., NCC, who previously brought Bruno A. Cayoun's foundational MiCBT Principles and Practice text to Vietnamese readers. Together, these two translations give Vietnamese-speaking clinicians MiCBT clinical tools.

We're sharing some photos from last year's launch of MiCBT: Principles and Practice. The appetite for evidence-based mindfulness therapy in Vietnam is real, and growing.

Join the celebration in Ho Chi Minh City:
Saturday, 16 May 2026 · 18:30–21:30
Psych Café, Phú Nhuận, HCMC

Edited · 2m

Your mind will wander during meditation.

This is not a failure.

It is the practice.

The moment you notice that your mind has wandered — that moment of noticing — is itself an act of mindfulness. You have stepped back from the content of the thought and observed it.

And then you return. Without judgment. Without frustration.

Every return is a small strengthening of the capacity that MiCBT is training — the capacity to observe experience without being absorbed by it.

MiCBT for Well-being and Personal Growth, 2nd Edition. -> store.mindfulness.net.au

Here is something that surprises a lot of people.

Anxiety is not primarily a thinking problem.

It is a body problem.

When we feel anxious, we experience it as worry — as thoughts spiralling. But what is driving those thoughts is something more immediate: a physical sensation. A tightness in the chest. A contraction in the stomach. A subtle, pervasive sense of unease in the body.

CBT works with thoughts. That is valuable. But if you do not also address the body sensations generating those thoughts — the cycle continues.

MiCBT trains you to work at both levels simultaneously.

That is why it works when other approaches have not.

MiCBT for Wellbeing and Personal Growth - store.mindfulness.net.au

For the mental health professionals in this community —

The MiCBT for Well-being and Personal Growth book is not just for self-help readers.

It works powerfully as a between-session resource for clients undertaking the MiCBT programme. Rather than relying on session summaries alone, clients have a complete, week-by-week guide — with rationale, exercises, and audio-guided practices — to support their work between appointments.

The 2nd Edition also addresses one of the most common clinical concerns: what to do when mindfulness practice activates difficult memories. The new trauma-aware guidance gives practitioners clear, evidence-based protocols for these situations.

Get the book: store.mindfulness.net.au

She had lived with anxiety since childhood.

Constant worry. Chronic fatigue. A crippling fear of being harmed at night — a remnant of a strict upbringing she thought she had left behind long ago.

After completing the MiCBT programme, she wrote:

"The old negative, worrying, anxious thoughts no longer have control of my mind. Where once I would have become angry, now I laugh. There are often times when my whole being is suffused with a sense of peace and joy that would have been unimaginable two years ago."

She was 12 years free of those symptoms when this letter was written.

This kind of change is possible. It requires a structured, evidence-based path — not just insight or willpower.

That is what this book provides.

MiCBT for Wellbeing and Personal Growth - 2nd Ed.
store.mindfulness.net.au

MiCBT is not a new idea with a new name.

The programme was first developed in 2001. Every skill has been tested, refined, and retested — in clinical settings, across cultures, across a wide range of presenting difficulties.

The results have been consistent:— Significant reductions in depression, anxiety, and stress
— Improved emotional regulation and self-confidence
— Better interpersonal functioning and relationship satisfaction
— Benefits that persist well beyond the end of the programme

The 2nd Edition incorporates this latest research alongside the deepest, most practical version of the programme ever published.

store.mindfulness.net.au

Tom had lived with trauma his whole life.
By the end of the MiCBT programme, this is what he said:
"I still have intrusive thoughts but I let them go straight away. I am enjoying the company of my wife so much more. I am equanimous and relaxed, and at peace with the world."
What changed? Not his circumstances.
His relationship to his own inner experience.
That is what this programme trains. Not positive thinking. Not relaxation. A genuine shift in how you relate to what is happening inside you.
The 2nd Edition of MiCBT for Well-being and Personal Growth is now available. If you or someone you know is ready to make that shift, the book is available here: store.mindfulness.net.au

Most programmes stop at managing your own emotions.

MiCBT goes further.

In Stage 3, you learn not to react to other people's reactivity.

When someone is angry, anxious, or critical — your default response is shaped by years of habit. In Stage 3, you begin to interrupt that habit. You learn to stay grounded in your own experience, while still being genuinely present with others.

In Stage 4, you extend this further — toward compassion. For others, and for yourself.

Not as a concept. As a practised skill.

The 2nd Edition of MiCBT for Well-being and Personal Growth. store.mindfulness.net.au

Stage 2 — Exposure Stage
Here is something most people find surprising about MiCBT.

Stage 2 is not about relaxation.

It is about gently facing the situations you have been avoiding.

Avoidance makes sense in the short term — it reduces anxiety immediately. But over time, it shrinks your world. It reinforces the belief that you cannot cope.

In Stage 2, you use the mindfulness skills you have been building to face avoided situations — not to push through them, but to move through them with equanimity.

The result: not just less anxiety. A quiet, growing confidence that you can handle what comes.