Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces overgeneral autobiographical memory in formerly depressed patients.

Abstract

Previous research on depressed and suicidal patients and those with posttraumatic stress disorder has shown that patients' memory for the past is overgeneral (i.e., patients retrieve generic summaries of past events rather than specific events). This study investigated whether autobiographical memory could be affected by psychological treatment. Recovered depressed patients were randomly allocated to receive either treatment as usual or treatment designed to reduce risk of relapse. Whereas control patients showed no change in specificity of memories recalled in response to cue words, the treatment group showed a significantly reduced number of generic memories. Although such a memory deficit may arise from long-standing tendencies to encode and retrieve events generically, such a style is open to modification.

Examination of the Utility of Psychotherapy for Patients with Treatment Resistant Depression: A Systematic Review

“…[46][47][48] Collaborative care models involving depression care managers have been shown to improve the quality of depression care, symptom severity, patient satisfaction, and functional impairment. 8,40 A few of these trials utilized empirically based psychotherapy as a treatment option for treatment resistant depression. 47,49 Unfortunately, psychotherapy in these trials was delivered as part of a package of collaborative care and its unique contribution to improved outcomes cannot be assessed.…”

“…2 Of the estimated 13% that will experience MDD in their lifetimes, 20% will experience chronic depression and 60-85% will experience relapse or recurrence. 2,3 Providers have access to several effective and efficacious treatment options, including a wide array of antidepressant medications [4][5][6][7][8] and psychotherapeutic interventions. [9][10][11][12][13] For chronic MDD, a combination of psychotherapy and medication has been found to be the most effective.…”

Impaired ability to imagine future pleasant events is associated with apathy in schizophrenia

“…The imagined events were categorized as one of three types (Williams et al, 2000): (1) specific events, defined as personal future events that happen in a particular place and time and last for one day or less (e.g., "I imagine it is Christmas Eve, we are at home and my children are giving me a present"); (2) categoric events, referring to a category of events that occur repeatedly over a period of time (e.g., "I am going to take an apartment and I don't have many friends, so I think I will often be alone; I see that as a general situation"); and (3) extended events, which correspond to a series of events that last for longer periods of time (i.e., events occurring over more than a day; e.g., "I imagine next summer, my wife and children will be away on holidays for a week and I will be alone at home"). Following Baddeley and Wilson's (1986) method, responses were scored on a scale from 3 to 1, with higher scores reflecting greater specificity.…”

Trait mindfulness and autobiographical memory specificity

“…Recent studies have shown that short courses of training in state mindfulness can increase a characteristic of autobiographical memories known as specificity (Hargus, Crane, Barnhofer and Williams 2010;Heeren, van Broeck and Philippot 2009;Williams, Teasdale, Segal and Soulsby 2000). Specificity refers to the degree to which individuals retrieve specific memories for personal experiences when asked to do so; that is, memories that occurred at a particular time and place and lasted less than one day.…”

“…Their reduced specificity is usually accompanied by overgeneral memory characterised by an increase in the recall of categoric memories, a type of general memories that summarise a category of repeated events (e.g., Williams et al 2007;Williams and Dritschel 1992). Williams et al (2000) showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) increased memory specificity and reduced overgeneral memory in formerly depressed patients. The mindfulness techniques taught in this programme of eight weekly classes and daily homework exercises aim to develop awareness of the present moment and sensory processing rather than higher-order processing, and acceptance rather than avoidance of cognitions that arise.…”