Psychological Medicine
July 13, 2026
Thorsten Barnhofer, Barnaby D. Dunn, Clara Strauss et al.
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was developed for relapse prevention in people with remitted depression but is increasingly used for those with difficult-to-treat depression (DTD). A key question regarding this broader application is whether ongoing depressive symptoms constrain therapeutic responsiveness or disrupt MBCT's proposed mechanism, decentering. We explored whether baseline...
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
June 12, 2026
Thorsten Barnhofer, Maria Niemi, Johannes Michalak et al.
1 citation
INTRODUCTION: Around a third of patients with major depressive disorder experience persistent symptoms despite usual treatments. Identifying scalable, psychological treatment options is critical to reduce the burden associated with difficult-to-treat depression (DTD). We examined the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) compared with treatment as usual (TAU) and other active...
BMJ Open
April 1, 2026
Maria Niemi, Johannes Michalak, Maria Velana et al.
Introduction Mindfulness-based interventions are widely used, yet concerns about potential negative effects—particularly those related to mindfulness meditation practice—have gained increasing attention. Individuals with difficult-to-treat depression (DTD) represent a population of particular relevance due to heightened vulnerability, but comparative evidence on clinically relevant negative...
Open MIND
2026
Ellen Sallis, Thorsten Barnhofer, Daniel Milburn et al.
Research to date has focused largely on mindfulness-based interventions as whole treatment packages, with relatively little exploration of the specific mindfulness practices that comprise them. Understanding the effects of individual practices could offer insight into why mindfulness-based interventions work for some but not others and help identify and mitigate any adverse effects. This is in...
Mindfulness
July 1, 2025
Jonathan Hamilton, Kate Brennan, Daniel Brown et al.
Abstract Objectives Mindfulness training has been shown to be helpful in the treatment of depression. However, standard mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are still not widely available and sustaining a mindfulness practice can be difficult for patients with current depression. Alternative delivery formats may serve to address these problems. This study tested the acceptability,...
The lancet. Psychiatry
June 1, 2025
Thorsten Barnhofer, Barnaby D. Dunn, Clara Strauss et al.
9 citations
Non-remission after psychological therapy for major depressive disorder is common, yet there are no established further-line treatments. In the UK National Health Service (NHS) Talking Therapies programme, about 50% of patients with depression who come to the end of the stepped care pathway do not show remission of symptoms. We aimed to investigate whether mindfulness-based cognitive therapy...
Psychiatry Research
November 1, 2024
Jonathan Hamilton, Thorsten Barnhofer
2 citations
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for depression use regular mindfulness practice as a means of helping patients build skills that allow them to respond more adaptively to negative mood. Although effects of practice are assumed to accumulate over time, little is known about the trajectories of change in skills and symptoms beyond the duration of standard eight-week interventions....
Trials
January 19, 2023
Thorsten Barnhofer, Barnaby D. Dunn, Clara Strauss et al.
Background Major depression represents a pressing challenge for health care. In England, Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services provide evidence-based psychological therapies in a stepped-care approach to patients with depression. While introduction of these services has successfully increased access to therapy, estimates suggest that about 50% of depressed patients who...
PLoS One
2023
Marco Schlosser, Harriet Demnitz-King, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
13 citations
Older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) recruited from memory clinics have an increased risk of developing dementia and regularly experience reduced psychological well-being related to memory concerns and fear of dementia. Research on improving well-being in SCD is limited and lacks non-pharmacological approaches. We investigated whether mindfulness-based and health education...
Neuropsychology Review
August 4, 2021
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
193 citations
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are increasingly utilized to improve mental health. Interest in the putative effects of MBPs on cognitive function is also growing. This is the first meta-analysis of objective cognitive outcomes across multiple domains from randomized MBP studies of adults. Seven databases were systematically searched to January 2020. Fifty-six unique studies (n = 2,931) were...
Psychosomatic Medicine
May 5, 2021
Thorsten Barnhofer, Tim Jonas Reeß, Maria Fißler et al.
24 citations
OBJECTIVE: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been found to be a promising approach for the treatment of recurrent courses of depression. However, little is known about their neural mechanisms. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study set out to investigate activation changes in corticolimbic regions during implicit emotion regulation. METHODS: Depressed patients with a...
April 13, 2021
Marco Schlosser, Thorsten Barnhofer, Florence Requier et al.
2 citations
Objectives: Deepening our understanding of the mechanisms by which meditation practices impact well-being and human flourishing is essential for advancing the science of meditation. The phenomenologically grounded classification system introduced by Dahl, Lutz, and Davidson (2015) distinguishes attentional, constructive, and deconstructive forms of meditation based on the psychological...
Mindfulness
March 1, 2021
Kate Williams, Rebecca Elliott, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
Abstract Objectives A combination of negatively biased information processing and a reduced ability to experience positive emotions can persist into remission from major depression (rMDD). Studies have shown that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can increase self-reported positive emotions in rMDD participants; similar changes using neuropsychological tasks have not been shown. In...
Alzheimer s & Dementia
December 1, 2020
Tim Whitfield, Thorsten Barnhofer, Rebecca L. Acabchuk et al.
6 citations
Abstract Background The primary focus of mindfulness‐based program (MBP) research to date has been on mental health. More recently, attention has turned to putative effects on cognition. An evidence synthesis is required to answer the key question of ‘Do MBPs confer cognitive benefit, and if so, for whom?’ A particularly crucial distinction is whether benefits differ according to individuals’...
Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging
July 23, 2020
K. Williams, Rebecca Elliott, S. Mckie et al.
Mindfulness-Based-Cognitive-Therapy (MBCT) reduces vulnerability for relapse into depression by helping individuals to counter tendencies to engage in maladaptive repetitive patterns of thinking and respond more compassionately to negative self-judgment. However, little is known about the neural correlates underlying these effects. To elucidate these correlates, we investigated fMRI brain...
May 29, 2019
Michael Lifshitz, Matthew D. Sacchet, Julia M. Huntenburg et al.
1 citation
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with abnormal functional interactions among large-scale brain networks. Here we report findings from a randomized, active-controlled trial examining whether mindfulness-based therapy can regulate specific patterns of resting-state functional connectivity in clinically depressed patients. We show that a brief, clinically effective mindfulness...
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2017
Emilia Winnebeck, Maria Fißler, M. Gärtner et al.
BACKGROUND Training in mindfulness has been introduced to the treatment of depression as a means of relapse prevention. However, given its buffering effects on maladaptive responses to negative mood, mindfulness training would be expected to be particularly helpful in those who are currently suffering from symptoms. This study investigated whether a brief and targeted mindfulness-based...
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...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
August 24, 2015
Thorsten Barnhofer, Catherine Crane, Kate Brennan et al.
Objective: In patients with a history of suicidal depression, recurrence of depressive symptoms can easily reactivate suicidal thinking. In this study, we investigated whether training in mindfulness, which is aimed at helping patients “decenter” from negative thinking, could help weaken the link between depressive symptoms and suicidal cognitions. Method: Analyses were based on data from a...
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2014
Catherine Crane, Rebecca S. Crane, Catrin Eames et al.
Few empirical studies have explored the associations between formal and informal mindfulness home practice and outcome in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). In this study ninety-nine participants randomised to MBCT in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial completed self-reported ratings of home practice over 7 treatment weeks. Recurrence of Major Depression was assessed...
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
December 3, 2013
J. Mark G. Williams, Catherine Crane, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
418 citations
OBJECTIVE: We compared mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) with both cognitive psychological education (CPE) and treatment as usual (TAU) in preventing relapse to major depressive disorder (MDD) in people currently in remission following at least 3 previous episodes. METHOD: A randomized controlled trial in which 274 participants were allocated in the ratio 2:2:1 to MBCT plus TAU, CPE...
Cognitive Therapy and Research
January 20, 2011
Catherine Crane, Rosie Winder, Emily Hargus et al.
47 citations
This study explored the immediate effects of a course of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for chronically depressed participants with a history of suicidality on the specificity of important goals for the future. Participants were randomly allocated to immediate treatment with MBCT or to a waitlist condition and life goals were assessed both before and after the treatment or waiting...
Mindfulness
December 1, 2010
Catherine Crane, Danka Jandric, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
Conditional goal setting (CGS, the tendency to regard high order goals such as happiness, as conditional upon the achievement of lower order goals) is observed in individuals with depression and recent research has suggested a link between levels of dispositional mindfulness and conditional goal setting in depressed patients. Since interventions which aim to increase mindfulness through...
Mindfulness
March 1, 2010
Thorsten Barnhofer, Tobias Chittka, Helen Nightingale et al.
99 citations
We investigated state effects of two forms of meditation on electroencephalography prefrontal α-asymmetry, a global indicator of approach versus withdrawal motivation and related affective state. A clinical series of previously depressed individuals were guided to practice either mindfulness breathing meditation (N = 8) or a form of meditation directly aimed at cultivating positive affect,...
Emotion
February 1, 2010
Emily Hargus, Catherine Crane, Thorsten Barnhofer et al.
213 citations
The authors examined the effects of mindfulness training on 2 aspects of mode of processing in depressed participants: degree of meta-awareness and specificity of memory. Each of these has been suggested as a maladaptive aspect of a mode of processing linked to persistence and recurrence of symptoms. Twenty-seven depressed participants, all of whom had experienced suicidal crises, described...