Read Full Catastrophy Living by John Kabat-Zin. He kind of launched mindfullness as a treatment modality in the west. Mindfullness based meditation was taught both in the alcohol treatment centre I went to and the psych hospital I was in. It basically means learning to focus intently on what you are doing at any one time, like breathing. I've got a couple of other self help books based on mindfullness. One is a mindful recovery, which is about overcoming addictions, and one is on depression Kabat-Zin is one of the authors along with 2 other people. He also has guided meditation CD's for beginners which I use and find really helpful.

--splitimage