Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to alleviate symptoms of a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. Regular between-session practice of mindfulness meditation is among the key factors proposed to produce the therapeutic benefits of mindfulnessbased programs. This article reviews the mindfulness intervention literature with a focus on the status of home practice research and the relationship of practice to mindfulness program outcomes. Of 98 studies reviewed, nearly one-quarter (N = 24) evaluated the associations between home practice and measures of clinical functioning, with just over half (N = 13) demonstrating at least partial support for the benefits of practice. These findings indicate a substantial disparity between what is espoused clinically and what is known empirically about the benefits of mindfulness practice. Improved methodologies for tracking and evaluating the effects of home practice are recommended.

Child maltreatment-related outcomes range from no symptom expression to suicide. Increasingly, the diverse presentations have been conceptualized as core system dysregulation, including emotion dysregulation. Self-compassion has been advanced as a self-regulation strategy for countering negative self-directed emotions. This study explored whether individual differences in self-compassion would play a role in loosening the associations among childhood maltreatment severity and later emotion regulation difficulties. The sample consisted of transition-age youth (N=81) seeking treatment for problem substance use. Self-compassion was negatively associated with emotion regulation difficulties and childhood maltreatment, and predicted emotion dysregulation above and beyond maltreatment history, current severity of psychological distress, and problem substance use. In addition, self-compassion mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment severity and later emotion dysregulation. These findings provide an impetus for further research into the relevance of self-compassion for maltreatment-related impairment.

Aspects of interpersonal, personality, and cognitive models of depression were tested in a college sample. The perceptions and actual interpersonal behaviors of dependent and self-critical women and their romantic partners were assessed during a conflict-resolution task. Dependent women were characterized by positive biases in the perception of lovingness expressed within the relationship. The partners of dependent women, however, experienced a decrease in positive affect and a trend toward increasing hostility during the conflict-resolution task. Self-critical women were objectively rated as less loving and more hostile, and their partners were also rated as less loving. Self-critics also exhibited negative biases in self-perceptions of submissiveness. The results are interpreted within a comprehensive framework integrating various elements of interpersonal, personality, and cognitive models of depression.

Mindfulness-and acceptance-based therapies have been explored within the context of addiction treatment, with some preliminary success. The current empirical study investigated the effectiveness of a brief suppression versus mindfulness-based strategy for coping with cigarette cravings. Participants (N =61; M age= 40.34 years, SD=12.42) were randomly assigned to using one of the two coping strategies to help them manage cravings during an experimental cue exposure to cigarettes. Participants completed self-report measures of self-efficacy, craving, negative affect, depression, and nicotine dependence before and after the cue exposure and at a 7-day follow-up assessment session. Participants in both conditions reported significantly reduced amount of smoking and increased self-efficacy in coping with smoking urges at the 7-day follow-up. However, only participants in the mindfulness condition demonstrated reductions in negative affect, depressive symptoms, and marginal reductions in their level of nicotine dependence. These findings suggest that, although both conditions were associated with improvements on smoking relevant outcomes, only mindfulness had beneficial effects on reported nicotine dependence and emotional functioning over the course of the study. These findings provide preliminary support for the use of mindfulness-based strategies for coping with smoking urges, as these strategies appear to provide some additional benefits not obtained when coping with smoking cravings through suppression.

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