medRxiv
July 10, 2026
Daniel Copeland, Naoise Mac Giollabhui, Louisa G Sylvia et al.
preprint
Background: Despite growing evidence that lifestyle interventions reduce depressive symptoms, the psychological mechanisms underlying these effects remain poorly understood. This study examined whether mindfulness and rumination mediate the antidepressant effects of heated yoga (HY), a multicomponent intervention combining physical activity, attentional training, and thermoregulatory stress....
Frontiers in Psychology
2026
Leonardo Christov-Moore, Félix Schoeller, Mathilda Von Guttenberg et al.
Non-pharmacologically induced altered states of consciousness that promote mental health and wellbeing are a growing focus of clinical and basic research. Previous work has revealed the mood-augmenting, belief-altering, and self-transcendent effects of aesthetic-chills-inducing audiovisual stimulation. The current study investigated how a guided loving kindness meditation (LKM) combined with...
Aging & Mental Health
June 24, 2025
Paulina Gutierrez-Ramirez, Liliana A. Ramirez Gomez, Miranda Zea et al.
Family dementia caregivers exhibit high rates of chronic psychological stress. We aimed to determine the impact of mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT), a mindfulness and guided imagery approach, on perceived stress and positive psychological traits. We further investigated the role of dispositional mindfulness on these effects. This analysis of secondary outcomes drew from a pilot randomized...
Journal of Affective Disorders Reports
2024
Saira Madarasmi, Paulina Gutierrez-Ramirez, N. Barsoum et al.
Background: Family caregivers of persons living with dementia often experience increased depression and suicidal ideation (SI). However, the feasibility and impact of therapies on caregiver SI has remained largely unexplored. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) helps reduce psychological symptoms through mindfulness and guided imagery. This pilot study examined the feasibility of participation by...
Frontiers in Psychology
February 16, 2023
Liliana A. Ramirez Gomez, Julene K. Johnson, C. Ritchie et al.
Spanish speaking family caregivers of people living with dementia have limited supportive resources in Spanish. There are few validated, culturally acceptable virtual interventions for reducing these caregivers’ psychological distress. We investigated the feasibility of a Spanish language adaptation of a virtual Mentalizing Imagery Therapy (MIT) program, which provides guided imagery and...
Seminars in neurology
April 1, 2022
Kristen M. Kraemer, Felipe A Jain, Darshan H Mehta et al.
A growing body of research suggests that meditative- and mindfulness-focused interventions may improve neuropsychiatric symptoms that commonly occur in a range of neurological disorders. In this article, the principles of meditation and mindfulness are first defined, as well as briefly describing the neurobiological mechanisms implicated in these interventions. Thereafter, a range of...
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
March 14, 2022
Felipe A Jain, Sergey V. Chernyak, Lisa D Nickerson et al.
Introduction: Family caregivers of patients with dementia suffer a high burden of depression and reduced positive emotions. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) provides mindfulness and guided imagery skills training to improve balanced mentalizing and emotion regulation. Objective: Our aims were to test the hypotheses that MIT for family caregivers would reduce depression symptoms and improve...
Contemporary Clinical Trials
March 1, 2022
Felipe A Jain, O. Okereke, Laura N. Gitlin et al.
More than 50 million people worldwide live with a dementia, and most are cared for by family members. Family caregivers often experience chronic stress and insomnia, resulting in decreased mental and physical health. Accessibility of in-person stress reduction therapy is limited due to caregiver time constraints and distance from therapy sites. Mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT) provides...
Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology
February 14, 2022
H. Sakurai, Bettina B. Hoeppner, Felipe A Jain et al.
Abstract Background Some staging models for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) have been developed in the attempt to predict treatment outcome, in particular with electroconvulsive therapy. However, these models have not been tested in predicting clinical outcome of ketamine treatment. We assessed the relationship between patients' classification with different TRD staging models and...
Journal of Affective Disorders Reports
February 8, 2021
Felipe A Jain, Sergey V. Chernyak, Lisa D Nickerson et al.
Background: Family dementia caregivers experience high rates of depression and anxiety that often go untreated due to time demands. We aimed to determine the feasibility of a brief, 4-week Mentalizing Imagery Therapy intervention, which couples mindfulness with guided imagery practices aimed at bolstering mentalizing capacity, to reduce caregiver psychological symptoms and to explore potential...
2021
Kelsey T. Laird, Felipe A Jain, Helen Lavretsky
Mind–body therapies that include meditation (e.g., mindfulness-based therapies, transcendental meditation, mantra meditation, and yoga) have demonstrated efficacy for enhancing mental health in a range of clinical and healthy populations. Of the forms of meditation, empirical research has most commonly focused on mindfulness-based approaches. Existing evidence suggests that, on average, both...
October 5, 2018
A. Sikder, F. Yang, R. Schafer et al.
Objectives: Due to psychological and physical strain, family caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are at high risk for depression and stress related disorders. We investigated the feasibility of a mobile application (App) intervention delivering Mentalizing Imagery Therapy (MIT), which incorporates guided imagery and mindfulness, to facilitate self-regulation...
Mindfulness
May 31, 2018
Felipe A Jain, P. Fonagy
Facilitating mentalization, or the ability to understand mental states and their link to behavior, is increasingly viewed as a common mechanism of action across effective psychotherapies. Here, we present an overview of a new set of contemplative psychotherapeutic techniques, mentalizing imagery therapy (MIT), which uses guided imagery and mindfulness practices to facilitate mentalization. MIT...
Psychosomatics
October 22, 2014
Felipe A Jain, Roger Walsh, Stuart J. Eisendrath et al.
Background: Recently, the application of meditative practices to the treatment of depressive disorders has met with increasing clinical and scientific interest, owing to a lower side-effect burden, potential reduction of polypharmacy, and theoretical considerations that such interventions may target some of the cognitive roots of depression. Objective: We aimed to determine the state of the...
Psychosomatic Medicine
Eileen Luders, Felipe A Jain, Florian Kurth
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that meditation may slow brain aging. The amygdala-a heterogenous brain region known to decrease in volume with increasing age-seems to be involved in meditation and affected by meditation. Thus, we hypothesized that the age-related decline of the amygdala is diminished in meditation practitioners. We investigated whether correlations between age...
Leonardo Christov-Moore, Félix Schoeller, Mathilda Von Guttenberg et al.
preprint
Understanding and facilitating access to non-ordinary experiences that can promote mental health and wellbeing is a growing focus of clinical and basic research. . Previous work has revealed the mood-augmenting, belief-altering, and self-transcendent effects of aesthetic-chills-inducing audiovisual stimulation, as a putative “technodelic.” The current study investigated how a guided loving...