Objective The effectiveness of remotely delivered group interventions and treatments for individuals with more complex psychiatric presentations is understudied. Nevertheless, the emergence of the COVID‐19 pandemic shifted such treatments from in‐person to remote service delivery without the establishment of comparable effectiveness between in‐person and remote delivery. The current study presents the results of a private practice's transition from in‐person treatment delivery to a videoconference‐delivered Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)‐based intensive outpatient program (IOP) for individuals with comorbid mental health and substance use disorder diagnoses in response to the pandemic. Methods Change in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress following completion of the IOP was compared between the in‐person and videoconference groups. Results Large reductions in symptoms were found following completion of the IOP for both the in‐person and videoconference groups. Furthermore, no significant differences in symptom reduction were found between the groups. Conclusion Although large‐scale replication is needed, these results suggest that IOPs and other intensive group therapies delivered via videoconference may be as effective as in‐person therapies, even among individuals with more complex psychiatric presentations. Providers who have transitioned group therapies to videoconference formats or are considering creating remote groups can be more confident that they are not sacrificing treatment efficacy.

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Rumination has been consistently shown to play a critical role in the severity and course of depression. Relatively understudied, however, is the nature of rumination across time and how individual differences in the temporal dynamics of rumination may be related to depression. In this study, we investigated the association between ruminative inertia (the degree to which rumination levels are resistant to change from day to day) and both current and past depression in a clinical sample. Participants ( N = 71) completed daily-diary surveys for 3 weeks. Ruminative inertia was positively associated with current depressive symptoms and negatively associated with the number of past depressive episodes. These findings suggest that more severe depressive symptoms are associated with rumination that is more resistant to change over time, whereas a greater number of past depressive episodes is related to less ruminative inertia. Additional research is needed to explore the directionality of these effects.

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