Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) may reduce depressive symptoms in adults aged 60 years and older compared with control conditions. A meta-analysis of three randomized controlled trials involving 178 participants found that MBCT was associated with significantly lower depressive symptom severity (pooled effect size Hedges g = -0.92, 95% confidence interval -1.30 to -0.55, with no heterogeneity). Evidence for anxiety and quality-of-life outcomes was limited and could not be pooled, and no trials reported relapse or recurrence. The authors note the evidence base remains small and heterogeneous, calling for larger, methodologically rigorous trials with standardized outcomes and longer follow-up.
Mindfulness and compassion meditation programs similarly reduce the attentional blink deficit, improving attention to emotional and non-emotional stimuli. A study of 103 participants compared a mindfulness program (MBSR), a compassion program (CCT), and a no-intervention group. Both meditation programs led to significant disengagement from first-target emotions and greater accessibility of second-target emotions to consciousness, while the comparison group showed no change. Improvements in psychological distress, emotion regulation, and well-being were mediated by changes in attentional blink and emotion regulation skills. The findings suggest meditation promotes more flexible and balanced attention to emotional information, a key transdiagnostic mechanism for emotional distress and well-being.
The fundamental conflict between behaviorist and cognitive psychology is philosophical rather than scientific. Behaviorism rests on false premises: materialism, epiphenomenalism, a functional model of causality, and rejection of concepts referring to conscious states. An objective scientific psychology must instead take consciousness and volition as axiomatic starting points.