Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living is considered a pioneering work for introducing meditation and mindfulness to English language readers and helping to establish a new approach to mind-body health. Originally published by Bantam Books in 1990, this work was among the first to explore meditation as a tool for physical and psychological health, with a revised edition released in 2013 with updated statistics and other new commentary from the author. In the 1970s Kabat-Zinn learned from several Buddhist teachers, including the famed Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. A Vietnamese activist and author of the 1975 work The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, Thich Nhat Hanh helped to introduce meditation and Buddhist principles to readers around the world. Thich Nhat Hanh’s influence helped to inspire Kabat-Zinn to develop the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program he describes in this work, and Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a preface to both editions in which he praises Kabat-Zinn’s contributions to the genre.

In Full Catastrophe Living Kabat-Zinn credits the ancient traditions of Buddhism, Taoism, and yoga with developing meditation and mindfulness practices, and explains how these traditions and philosophies have informed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program which he developed in the 1970s.