The 8-week MBSR was developed in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, micro-biologist working at the university’s Medical Centre. The program was initially to support people suffering with a broad spectrum of physical and psychological challenges related to chronic pain, chronic conditions, anxiety and depression with associated anxiety and depression. 
According to Kabat-Zinn, the issue is not our medical condition, whatever it might be, but rather how we are relating to the challenges in our lives. 
This is without denying the difficulties, nor the potential need for medical treatment (Pia’s addendum).

Since 1979 the programme has grown and developed in hospitals, clinics, schools, prisons, companies and various community and commercial settings.

With MBSR, you are an active participant in your own well-being.

The focus is on training to become more aware, moment by moment, of physical sensations and of thoughts and feelings as mental events.
This provides a ‘de-centred’ relationship to thoughts and feelings in which one can see them as aspects of experience which move through our awareness, rather than a fixed reality.