Clinicians who deliver mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) agree that best practice requires sufficient preparation for patients, adherence to evidence-based guidelines, careful consideration of risks, adequate training and resources, and thoughtfully made adaptations. However, they did not reach consensus on statements where evidence is lacking for specific clinical populations or on the complex decision-making involved in delivering and adapting MBCT. The findings underscore the challenge of balancing a client-centered approach with fidelity to the evidence base when deciding who can access MBCT, how it is delivered, and when to adapt it.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) helps people with remitted major depression evaluate situations less negatively and more positively, a shift that correlates with increased mindfulness. In a non-randomized trial, 40 participants received MBCT, 33 continued treatment as usual, and 42 never-depressed controls were assessed. After the 8-week MBCT program, only the MBCT group showed a change in emotion evaluation ratings, from more negative to more positive, while both the MBCT and treatment-as-usual groups improved slightly in recognizing facial emotions. The findings suggest MBCT specifically encourages more positive appraisals of life events rather than altering basic emotion processing.