By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Mindfulness also allows us to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that we experience and to see how we can become entangled in that stream in ways that are not helpful. This lets us stand back from our thoughts and start to see their patterns. Gradually, we can train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over and realise that thoughts are simply ‘mental events’ that do not have to control us.” – Mark Williams
The common everyday use of the word depression is incorrect. It is used to describe cases of sadness or grief. These have a clear cause, are emotional states, and tend to be transitory. Depression, on the other hand, does not have a proximal cause and doesn’t slowly fade away. It includes sadness, a dysphoric mood state, but it also includes a loss of emotionality not a heightening. In addition, depression has characteristic cognitive (thought) processes that tend to accentuate and maintain the depression. Indeed, many forms of therapy for depression target these thought processes for change.
A characteristic of depression is dysfunctional attitudes. These involve ideas about themselves and others which tend to perpetuate the depression. For example, people high in depression tend to be overly sensitive to the evaluations of others, with their happiness dependent upon others liking and approving of them. This dysfunctional attitude is termed “Dependency.” Another dysfunctional attitude involves having idealized and perfectionistic expectations about themselves and their competences, with appearance and perfect performance at work and in everything they attempt to do, essential to their self-worth. This dysfunctional attitude is termed “Perfectionism/Performance Evaluation.”
Mindfulness training has been shown to be highly effective for depression. It also appears to alter cognitive processes. Indeed, a very effective form of therapy for depression, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), is specifically designed to increase mindfulness and interrupt the thought processes typical of depression. So, it makes sense to further study the links between mindfulness and dysfunctional attitudes in depressed people. In today’s Research News article “Effects of brief mindful acceptance induction on implicit dysfunctional attitudes and concordance between implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes.” See:
or below.
Keng and colleagues do just that. They recruited adults with mild to moderate depression. They completed a series of measures of mindfulness, depression, sad mood, and implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes. They then were given a task to induce a sad mood, recalling and writing for 10-minutes about three specific life incidents that made them feel lonely, sad, rejected, or hurt and again completed the measurements. The induction worked as the sadness ratings nearly doubled. Finally, they were randomly divided to receive a 15-min session of mindfulness induction (breath following meditation) or mind wandering. Subsequently they were again measured.
They found that neither the mindfulness induction nor the mind wandering resulted in a direct change in implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes. Rather, the effectiveness of these manipulations depended upon the overall level of mindfulness of the participant upon entering the experiment. For those participants who were high in mindfulness, the mindfulness induction reduced implicit dysfunctional attitudes, while for those participants who were low in mindfulness, the mindfulness induction increased implicit dysfunctional attitudes. In addition, they found that the mindfulness facets of describe and acting with awareness were the aspects of mindfulness that were most responsible for the effect. So, mindfulness induction decreased implicit dysfunctional attitudes in depressed people who were high in describing and acting with awareness but makes them worse in people low in these facets.
These results may be important for the clinical treatment of depression. Care must be taken in producing mindfulness with patients who are low in mindfulness to begin with as mindfulness induction may make them worse. On the other hand, inducing mindfulness in patients who are high in mindfulness may be a useful strategy to alter the implicit dysfunctional thinking in depression. It may suggest that mindfulness training be employed with patients who are low in mindfulness to raise mindfulness levels before treatment begins. Insuring high mindfulness may be important before treatment.
It should be kept in mind that the intervention in the present experiment was very short term, only 15 minutes of mindfulness. It may be that greater amounts of mindfulness training would result in benefits for both high and low mindful patients. Regardless, the results suggest that the dysfunctional attitudes in depression may be treated with mindfulness.
“As a remedy for depression and anxiety, mindfulness meditation may help patients let go of negative thoughts instead of obsessing over them. Training people to experience the present, rather than reviewing the past or contemplating the future, may help keep the mind out of a depressive or anxious loop.” – Hal Arkowitz
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Keng SL, Seah ST, Tong EM, Smoski M. Effects of brief mindful acceptance induction on implicit dysfunctional attitudes and concordance between implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes. Behav Res Ther. 2016 May 14;83:1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2016.05.004.
Highlights
- Mindfulnesstraining lowers implicit dysfunctional attitudes for mindful individuals.
- The training worsens implicit dysfunctional attitudes for less mindful individuals.
- The training enhances concordance between implicit and explicit attitudes.
Abstract
Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to be effective in alleviating depressive symptoms. While much work has examined the effects of mindfulness training on subjective symptoms and experiences, and less is known regarding whether mindfulness training may alter relatively uncontrollable cognitive processes associated with depressed mood, particularly implicit dysfunctional attitudes. The present study examined the effects of a brief mindful acceptance induction on implicit dysfunctional attitudes and degree of concordance between implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes in the context of sad mood. A total of 79 adult participants with elevated depressive symptoms underwent an autobiographical mood induction procedure before being randomly assigned to mindful acceptance or thought wandering inductions. Results showed that the effect of mindful acceptance on implicit dysfunctional attitude was significantly moderated by trait mindfulness. Participants high on trait mindfulness demonstrated significant improvements in implicit dysfunctional attitudes following the mindful acceptance induction. Those low on trait mindfulness demonstrated significantly worse implicit dysfunctional attitudes following the induction. Significantly greater levels of concordance between implicit and explicit dysfunctional attitudes were observed in the mindful acceptance condition versus the thought wandering condition. The findings highlight changes in implicit dysfunctional attitudes and improvements in self-concordance as two potential mechanisms underlying the effects of mindfulness-based interventions.