Abstract
Like adults, many adolescents live with mental health diagnoses and struggle to manage their symptoms. If adolescents do not find effective strategies to manage their symptoms, they may have a profound effect on their quality of life. While mindfulness has been practiced around the globe for thousands of years, it is an emerging method of practice in the mental health field. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) was developed as a treatment for adults. Mindfulness base cogitative therapy (MBCT) is an intervention adapted from MBSR. The purpose of this systemic review is to explore the effectiveness of MBSR and MBCT in reducing clinical symptoms in adolescents. The results of this review suggest that MBSR and MBCT may be effective in reducing some clinical symptoms in adolescents. MBSR and MBCT are skill-based interventions, that if effective, teach participants skills to manage their symptoms. This is imperative for work with adolescents as it empowers their independence; compared to medication-based treatments that may lead adolescents to believe they require medication to successfully manage their symptoms. This review found that MBSR and MBCT might also be effective when paired with treatment as usual (TAU). Further research that includes both a control and a treatment groups is recommended.