Behaviour Research and Therapy
May 10, 2017
Christine E. Parsons, Catherine Crane, Liam J. Parsons et al.
553 citations
Participants in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) complete about 64% of their assigned home mindfulness practice, which amounts to roughly 30 minutes per day, six days per week over eight weeks. Across 43 studies involving 1,427 participants, this estimate varied widely. In 28 studies with 898 participants, there was a small but significant positive association between the amount of self-reported home practice and better intervention outcomes. The findings suggest that while participants do not fully complete assigned practice, the practice they do complete is linked to benefits.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
February 13, 2009
Thorsten Barnhofer, Catherine Crane, Emily Hargus et al.
398 citations
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), which combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive therapy techniques, reduced depressive symptoms from severe to mild in patients with chronic-recurrent depression who had at least three previous episodes and a history of suicidal ideation. In a pilot study, patients randomly assigned to MBCT plus treatment-as-usual showed a significant decrease in self-reported depression and in the number meeting full diagnostic criteria, while those receiving treatment-as-usual alone showed no significant change. The findings, though limited by a small sample size, provide preliminary evidence that MBCT can alleviate current symptoms in this difficult-to-treat population.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
January 1, 1978
E.s. Ward
91 citations
No Summary
Behaviour Research and Therapy
January 1, 1991
Peter Fenwick
63 citations
No Summary
Behaviour Research and Therapy
January 1, 1964
C.g. Costello
10 citations
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) shows promise in reducing neuroticism, with a study involving 100 participants revealing a 30% decrease in neurotic traits after psychedelic-assisted therapy. Participants reported enhanced emotional well-being and increased openness, suggesting that psychedelics could be effective tools in psychotherapy techniques for treating neurotic disorders. The findings highlight the potential of chemical synthesis and alkaloids in developing new treatment applications, offering hope for those struggling with neurosis and enhancing the therapeutic arsenal available to psychotherapists.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
April 1, 2024
Eric L Garland, Thupten Jinpa
4 citations
A randomized clinical trial compared Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) with supportive psychotherapy for people with both chronic pain and opioid misuse. Participants who received MORE showed greater increases in self-transcendence during a mindfulness task, which led to stronger feelings of universal love. Those increased feelings of love, in turn, predicted lower opioid craving and reduced odds of opioid misuse over follow-ups up to nine months. The findings suggest that mindfulness practices may work partly by fostering self-transcendent experiences that enhance love and compassion, with potential benefits for reducing addictive behavior.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2024
Sibel Nayman, Isabelle Florence Schricker, Ioanna Franziska Grammatikos et al.
2 citations
Rumination and mindfulness are known risk and protective factors for mental health, but their role in Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) is unclear. In 60 women with PMDD and 60 healthy controls, brief ambulatory inductions of ruminative and mindful self-focus were administered during the follicular and late luteal phases. Women with PMDD showed stronger increases in positive affect in response to mindful self-focus during the late luteal phase, but not during the follicular phase. Across all participants, induced rumination immediately increased negative affect and rumination while decreasing present-moment awareness, whereas mindful self-focus increased self-acceptance. These results suggest that cycle-phase-specific mindfulness interventions may benefit PMDD, and that both rumination and mindfulness are targets for brief interventions regardless of cycle phase or clinical status.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
July 26, 2025
Corinna Baum, Vanessa Ditter, Janina Wurtz et al.
1 citation
Directing attention either toward or away from pain can reduce its impact. The Mindfulness-based Interoceptive Exposure Task (MIET), a sensory-focus method, and a distraction task both improved cold pain tolerance and reduced pain intensity and aversiveness in 160 participants (mean age 24 years, 71% female). MIET showed particular benefit for pain tolerance. People with lower dispositional mindfulness (lower scores on mindful awareness and nonreactivity) benefited more from MIET for pain tolerance, while higher fear of pain reduced MIET's effect on pain intensity but not tolerance.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
April 1, 2025
Nur Hani Zainal, Christian A. Webb, Lauren S. Hallion
A proof-of-concept study with 40 high-worry adults (80% with an anxiety disorder) tested whether features of worry predict which cognitive strategy works best to regulate it. Participants rated their worries on five dimensions and tried mindful acceptance, focused attention meditation, or thought suppression during brain scanning. The preregistered hypotheses were not supported, but exploratory analyses showed that mindfulness-based strategies were more effective than thought suppression for worries rated as more uncontrollable. The authors call for larger studies with more varied perseverative thoughts.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
May 1, 2026
K. Dion, A. Nixon, Rebecca Robillard et al.
A group intervention combining cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia and imagery rehearsal therapy for nightmares reduced insomnia severity, nightmare distress and frequency, PTSD severity, dysfunctional sleep-related beliefs, and insomnia-related ruminations, while increasing life satisfaction in 60 current and former military and law-enforcement personnel with PTSD. Sleep-diary measures improved, including shorter sleep onset latency, longer total sleep time, less wake after sleep onset, and higher sleep efficiency. Improvements in insomnia severity and nightmare distress each correlated with improvements in PTSD. The findings support the real-world effectiveness of jointly addressing insomnia and nightmares in trauma-exposed populations.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
November 1, 2025
Yaoyao Zhang, Xin Liu, Huimin Wu et al.
Both awareness and acceptance are linked to lower psychological stress in adolescents, but awareness alone may be more beneficial than combining it with acceptance. A survey of 3,304 adolescents found that both traits were negatively associated with stress, with awareness showing a stronger relationship. A randomized trial with 304 adolescents assigned to an awareness group, an awareness-plus-acceptance group, or control groups found that the awareness group reduced stress more than the combined group (effect size d = -0.23) and the blank control (d = -0.56). A third observational study of 111 adolescents indicated that conflict monitoring—a component of attention control—partly explains how awareness reduces stress.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2024
Catherine E Myers, Chintan V Dave, Megan S Chesin et al.
A treatment matching algorithm was developed to predict which Veterans at high risk for suicide would benefit more from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for suicide prevention (MBCT-S) versus enhanced treatment-as-usual (eTAU). Using data from a randomized clinical trial with 140 Veterans, random forest models predicted risk of a suicidal event within 12 months. The model for MBCT-S was slightly more accurate than for eTAU. Key predictors for MBCT-S included PTSD diagnosis, neurocognitive performance, prior residential treatment, and non-suicidal self-injury; for eTAU, past-year hospitalizations, therapy visits, suicidal ideation severity, and attentional control were important. Fewer suicidal events occurred among those assigned to their algorithm-indicated optimal treatment, suggesting the approach may improve outcomes, but further research is needed.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
February 1, 2024
Shannon Maloney, Jesus Montero-Marin, Willem Kuyken
An adapted mindfulness programme, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy-Taking it Further (MBCT-TiF), helped graduates of MBCT or MBSR improve their mental well-being more than simply continuing their own mindfulness practice. In a randomized trial with 164 graduates, those assigned to MBCT-TiF showed significantly greater gains in well-being after the programme, with a large effect size. No serious adverse effects occurred. The findings suggest that MBCT-TiF can help people sustain and build on the mental health benefits gained from an introductory mindfulness course, supporting a broader public-health approach to mental well-being.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
February 28, 2022
Anna Parisi, Adam W. Hanley, E. Garland
Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) reduces acute opioid craving, pain, and negative affect more than supportive group psychotherapy for chronic pain patients on long-term opioid therapy. In a trial with 50 participants receiving MORE and 45 receiving supportive group therapy, medium-to-large effects favored MORE for session-level improvements in craving, pain, and negative affect. Higher curiosity predicted craving reductions; greater decentering and daily mindfulness practice predicted reduced negative affect. Momentary measures showed significant group-by-time interactions for craving and pain. The findings suggest MORE provides immediate symptom relief on therapeutic targets in daily life.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
October 1, 2021
Megan S. Chesin, J. Keilp, A. Kline et al.
A randomized clinical trial tested whether Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy to Prevent Suicide (MBCT-S) improves attentional control, an objective marker of suicide attempt, in 135 high suicide risk Veterans. Seventy Veterans received MBCT-S plus enhanced treatment as usual (eTAU), and 65 received eTAU only. Computerized Stroop and emotion Stroop tasks were administered three times over six months. Veterans receiving MBCT-S showed a more favorable trajectory of attentional control over time, with improved combat-stress interference scores. Interference processing time for negative affective words deteriorated over time among Veterans receiving eTAU only. The authors suggest MBCT-S may effectively target attentional control in high suicide risk Veterans.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
May 25, 2021
C. Hitchcock, C. Haag, Alicia J. Smith et al.
preprint
Memory specificity—the ability to recall specific, single-incident autobiographical memories—has been thought to predict recurrent depression. This individual patient data meta-analysis examined whether mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) improves memory specificity and whether pre-treatment memory specificity moderates treatment response. Across datasets including 880 participants, memory specificity did not significantly change from before to after treatment for either MBCT or control interventions. Baseline memory specificity did not predict treatment response, whether measured by symptom levels or relapse risk. These findings question the assumed role of memory specificity in treatments for depression.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
January 1, 2018
Shian-Ling Keng, Hui Han Tan
People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are especially sensitive to social rejection. This experiment tested whether brief mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation (LKM) could help. One hundred eighteen adults with high BPD traits were randomly assigned to 10 minutes of mindful breathing, LKM, or a no-instruction control before experiencing social rejection. The mindfulness group recovered faster from negative affect and feelings of rejection than the control group, and also recovered faster from negative affect than the LKM group. Groups did not differ in immediate emotional reactions or aggressive behavior. Higher baseline trait mindfulness predicted less aggression overall. Brief mindfulness may help reduce the emotional impact of social rejection in people with high BPD traits, but brief LKM showed limited benefit.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2017
Emilia Winnebeck, Maria Fißler, M. Gärtner et al.
A brief mindfulness-based intervention (three individual sessions plus home practice) reduced depressive symptoms more than a control condition combining psycho-education and rest in 74 acutely depressed patients with chronic or recurrent depression. Only the mindfulness group showed increases in mindfulness and decreases in ruminative tendencies and cognitive reactivity. The findings suggest that targeted mindfulness training can help alleviate current symptoms and buffer maladaptive responses to negative mood in this population.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
October 1, 2017
Shian-Ling Keng, Jun Xian Tan
Brief mindfulness meditation, but not loving-kindness meditation (LKM), reduces shame in adults with high borderline personality disorder (BPD) traits. In a laboratory experiment, 88 participants with high BPD traits recalled a negative autobiographical memory to induce shame, then were randomly assigned to 10 minutes of mindful breathing, LKM, or a no-instruction control. Shame decreased significantly more in the mindfulness group than in the LKM or control groups. Social problem-solving abilities did not differ among groups after the intervention. The findings suggest mindfulness is effective for regulating shame in this population, while LKM may be less useful under high emotional arousal.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
December 1, 2014
Catherine Crane, Rebecca S. Crane, Catrin Eames et al.
In people with recurrent major depression who received Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy, those who practiced formal mindfulness exercises at home on at least three days per week during the seven-week treatment were almost half as likely to relapse over the following year as those who practiced less often. The average daily duration of formal practice was also linked to better outcomes. These associations held even after accounting for how plausible participants found the treatment. No significant link was found between informal mindfulness practice and relapse risk, possibly because informal practice is harder to measure. The findings suggest that regular formal home practice enhances the protective effect of MBCT against depression relapse.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
October 1, 2010
Greg Feldman, Jeff Greeson, Joanna Senville
Mindful breathing produces greater decentering—the ability to observe thoughts without over-identifying with them—than progressive muscle relaxation or loving-kindness meditation. In 190 female novice meditators randomly assigned to a single 15-minute audio-guided exercise, those who practiced mindful breathing reported more decentering immediately afterward. The link between how often repetitive thoughts occurred and how negatively participants reacted to those thoughts was weaker after mindful breathing than after the other two techniques, where the two were strongly and positively correlated. This relative independence suggests mindful breathing may reduce reactivity to repetitive thoughts, supporting decentering as a mechanism that distinguishes mindfulness from other stress-management approaches.