By combining modern psychology with ancient Buddhist philosophies, psychotherapist Jonathan Barfield is bringing healing to Telluride.

Barfield recently opened a new practice in the Wintercrown Building, 100 W. Colorado Ave., Ste. 241. His focus is primarily on helping people suffering from anxiety, depression and attention deficit disorders by using mindfulness and compassion-based, cognitive methods. He also offers a program for 9-12 year olds and specializes in men’s mental health.

“I’ve been approached by many of the men in town and they just let me know that there’s no men in town that offer any therapy,” Barfield said. “Sometimes you don’t want to go to a female therapist. Just hearing that enough times over the years really spurred me to open up this practice.”

The defining characteristics of mindfulness — a term that is seemingly everywhere these days — are awareness and acceptance. Much of the suffering we experience, Barfield said, comes from rejecting our feelings. Just acknowledging how we feel can begin to unravel negative emotions.

“When we apply mindfulness to depression or anxiety and we start to accept it, it starts to transform it at the base, at the roots,” he said.

Barfield said mindfulness has become trendy because it works. It’s a much-researched area of psychology and neuroscience, and results have been positive, he said. The practice has its origins in Buddhism, but stripping away the religious association and applying the philosophy in a therapeutic setting can be transformative, he said.

The ancient Eastern wisdom is still applicable today, because people are essentially the same. We still have the same brain functions, the same struggles with attachment and aversion, the same emotions of love, hate, ignorance, greed, jealousy as they did thousands of years ago. Some of the most popular mindfulness-based practices are extracted word for word from the Sutras, Barfield said.

“We are still working with this same basic stuff,” he said. “I think it worked really well for people back in the day, 2,000 or 2,500 years ago, so it makes sense that it works now.”

After working on the front lines in mental health institutions, jails and with adjudicated youth and those with substance abuse problems, Barfield realized he wanted to work with a wider variety of people. Barfield earned his doctorate in psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, Calif. He has published journal articles and lectured at universities in South Korea. He first came to the Telluride area in 2000 as an intern at Tomten Farm. He now lives in Ophir and is a new father to a four-month-old daughter.

Barfield is teaching a course, which begins Monday, through the University Centers of the San Miguel. The Psychology of Mindfulness is a four-class course on Mondays and Wednesdays through March 5 that will provide an overview of mindfulness from both the classical Buddhist and modern neurological perspectives. He is also offering a second class on mindfulness in education and childhood development. For more information, go to ucsanmiguel.org.

Barfield knows that mindfulness as a technique for promoting mental health works because he uses it himself. He has been practicing meditation for 17 years.

“I’ve always used meditation as my own approach to therapy and keeping my mind balanced,” he said. “It really works and it really works for me.”

For more information about Barfield’s practice, go to telluridepsychotherapist.com.