PLoS One
October 23, 2025
Daniel Cullen, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
BACKGROUND/ OBJECTIVES: Mindfulness practice has been widely adopted by healthcare staff, being grounded in evidence and supported by national guidelines. However, certain fundamental factors are not well understood, including attitudes towards mindfulness in-groups. The aim of this project was to explore the nature of social identification with mindfulness in-groups in relation to engagement...
Mindfulness
2025
Ryad Chems-Maarif, Kate Cavanagh, Ruth A. Baer et al.
Mindfulness research is hampered by the multiplicity of definitions of mindfulness. This heterogeneity, as reflected in the variability of mindfulness scales, limits the ability to generalize findings and hinders attempts to synthesize available studies. This paper explores traditional and contemporary definitions of mindfulness, aiming to extract core components and provide a refined and...
Scientific Reports
July 23, 2024
Guy W. Fincham, Elissa S Epel, Alessandro Colasanti et al.
High ventilation breathwork with retention (HVBR) has been growing in popularity over the past decade and might be beneficial for mental and physical health. However, little research has explored the potential therapeutic effects of brief, remotely delivered HVBR and the tolerability profile of this technique. Accordingly, we investigated the effects of a fully-automated HVBR protocol, along...
Research Square
April 22, 2024
Guy W. Fincham, Elissa S Epel, Alessandro Colasanti et al.
preprint
Abstract High ventilation breathwork with retention (HVBR) might be beneficial for mental/physical health and has been growing in popularity over the past decade. However, little research has investigated the potential therapeutic effects of brief, remotely delivered HVBR and the tolerability profile of this technique. This study (NCT06064474) was the largest blinded randomised-controlled trial...
Scientific Reports
December 13, 2023
Guy W. Fincham, Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh
Breathwork may offer simple tools for stress resilience. We conducted the largest parallel randomised-controlled trial on breathwork to date (NCT05676658) wherein 400 participants on the research platform Prolific were randomised, in blocks of 2 via remote software, to coherent breathing at ~ 5.5 breaths/min or a matched attention-placebo at 12 breaths/min, for ~ 10 min/day over 4 weeks....
Mindfulness
December 1, 2023
Eleanor Miles, Faith Matcham, Clara Strauss et al.
Abstract Objectives The benefits of mindfulness meditation can only be achieved if it is practiced, but health behavior research tells us that initiating and maintaining long-term behavior change is difficult. We propose that mindfulness meditation can be usefully viewed as a health behavior and that this perspective generates insights into how individuals can be supported to develop a healthy...
JAMA Psychiatry
May 1, 2023
Clara Strauss, Anna-Marie Bibby-Jones, Fergal Jones et al.
Depression is prevalent. Treatment guidelines recommend practitioner-supported cognitive behavioral therapy self-help (CBT-SH) for mild to moderate depression in adults; however, dropout rates are high. Alternative approaches are required. To determine if practitioner-supported mindfulness-based cognitive therapy self-help (MBCT-SH) is superior to practitioner-supported CBT-SH at reducing...
Scientific Reports
January 9, 2023
Guy William Fincham, Clara Strauss, Jesus Montero-Marin et al.
Deliberate control of the breath (breathwork) has recently received an unprecedented surge in public interest and breathing techniques have therapeutic potential to improve mental health. Our meta-analysis primarily aimed to evaluate the efficacy of breathwork through examining whether, and to what extent, breathwork interventions were associated with lower levels of self-reported/subjective...
Clinical Psychology Review
August 30, 2021
Heather B Taylor, Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh
Over the last decade there has been an explosion of interest in mindfulness-based self-help (MBSH) interventions. While widely available and extensively promoted, there is little consensus on their impact in public health or healthcare contexts. We present a systematic review and meta-analyses of 83 randomized controlled trials, comparing unguided MBSH to control conditions on outcomes of...
Journal of psychotherapy integration
September 14, 2020
Alesia Moulton-Perkins, D. Moulton, Kate Cavanagh et al.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) are effective in reducing distress among people with physical or mental health problems. However, implementation is limited by variable geographic provision, ability to travel, and the need for remote service delivery during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. Integration with Internet-enabled...
PLoS One
2020
Tamara Leeuwerik, Kate Cavanagh, Elizabeth Forrester et al.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) which includes Exposure and Response (ERP) is a highly effective, gold standard treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Nonetheless, not all patients with OCD significantly benefit from CBT. This has generated interest in the potential benefits of Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs), either integrated with CBT, to enhance engagement with ERP...
Psychological Assessment
August 1, 2019
Ruth A. Baer, Jenny Gu, Kate Cavanagh et al.
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 31(10) of Psychological Assessment (see record 2019-58643-005). The article should have been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0). Therefore, the article was amended to list the authors as copyright holders, and information about the terms of the CC BY 3.0 was added to the author...
Mindfulness
January 16, 2018
Kate Cavanagh, Alasdair Churchard, Puffin O'Hanlon et al.
Building on previous research, this study compared the effects of two brief, online mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs; with and without formal meditation practice) and a no intervention control group in a non-clinical sample. One hundred and fifty-five university staff and students were randomly allocated to a 2-week, self-guided, online MBI with or without mindfulness meditation practice,...
Mindfulness
December 18, 2017
Jenny Gu, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
Previous research examining the effects of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and their mechanisms of change has been hampered by failure to control for non-specific factors, such as social support and interaction with group members, facilitator contact and expectation of benefit, meaning that it remained possible that benefits of MBIs could have been attributable, perhaps entirely, to...
Mindfulness
November 6, 2017
Moitree Banerjee, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
Little is known about the factors associated with engagement in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). Moreover, engagement in MBIs is usually defined in terms of class attendance ('physical engagement') only. However, in the psychotherapy literature, there is increasing emphasis on measuring participants' involvement with interventions ('psychological engagement'). This study tests a model...
Mindfulness
May 25, 2017
Moitree Banerjee, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
86 citations
In order to increase the cost-efficiency, availability and ease of accessing and delivering mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), clinical and research interest in mindfulness-based self-help (MBSH) interventions has increased in recent years. Several studies have shown promising results of effectiveness of MBSH. However, like all self-help interventions, dropout rates and disengagement from...
PLoS One
June 15, 2016
Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh, Annie Oliver et al.
ObjectiveMindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can reduce risk of depressive relapse for people with a history of recurrent depression who are currently well. However, the cognitive, affective and motivational features of depression and anxiety might render MBIs ineffective for people experiencing current symptoms. This paper presents a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of...
Psychological Assessment
April 14, 2016
Jenny Gu, Clara Strauss, Catherine Crane et al.
Research into the effectiveness and mechanisms of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) requires reliable and valid measures of mindfulness. The 39-item Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-39) is a measure of mindfulness commonly used to assess change before and after MBIs. However, the stability and invariance of the FFMQ factor structure have not yet been tested before and after an...
PLoS One
2016
Billie Lever Taylor, Kate Cavanagh, Clara Strauss
Perinatal mental health difficulties are associated with adverse consequences for parents and infants. However, the potential risks associated with the use of psychotropic medication for pregnant and breastfeeding women and the preferences expressed by women for non-pharmacological interventions mean it is important to ensure that effective psychological interventions are available. It has been...
Clinical Psychology Review
April 1, 2015
Jenny Gu, Clara Strauss, R. Bond et al.
Given the extensive evidence base for the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), researchers have started to explore the mechanisms underlying their therapeutic effects on psychological outcomes, using methods of mediation analysis. No known studies have systematically reviewed and statistically integrated mediation studies in this...
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 2014
Billie Lever Taylor, Clara Strauss, Kate Cavanagh et al.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) involves approximately twenty hours of therapist contact time and is not universally available. MBCT self-help (MBCT-SH) may widen access but little is known about its effectiveness. This paper presents a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of MBCT-SH for students. Eighty students were randomly assigned to an eight-week MBCT-SH condition or a wait-list...
Clara Strauss, Amy Arbon, Michael Barkham et al.
preprint
Abstract Background Depression has serious personal, family and economic consequences. It is estimated that it will cost £12.15 billion to the economy each year in England by 2026. Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) is the National Health Service talking therapies service in England for adults experiencing anxiety or depression. Over 1 million people are referred to IAPT every...