No abstract

Mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions have been used in social anxiety treatments with initial success. Further research requires the psychometrically sound measurement of mechanisms of change associated with these treatments. This research was conducted to develop and evaluate such a measure, the Social Anxiety-Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (SA-AAQ) which was created to assess acceptance specific to social anxiety symptoms. The results indicated that the SA-AAQ has good internal consistency and good convergent and divergent validity. Findings suggest that the SA-AAQ is a psychometrically sound instrument proposed to measure acceptance of social anxiety symptoms, a potential mechanism of change in mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions for social anxiety.

The purpose of this study was to investigate social anxiety and the effect of rumination and distraction periods immediately following a speech task on subsequent postevent processing. A secondary aim was to examine the content of postevent rumination. Participants (N = 114 students) completed measures of social anxiety and depression, delivered a 3-minute speech, and were randomly assigned to complete (1) a rumination form about the speech (guided negative rumination condition) or (2) an anagram form (distraction condition). One week later participants completed measures of postevent processing related to the speech task. It was hypothesized that social anxiety would interact with condition in predicting levels of postevent processing. This hypothesis was supported in the prediction of positive thoughts such that at high levels of social anxiety the distraction condition led to more positive thoughts compared with the guided negative rumination condition, whereas at low levels of social anxiety conditions were similar with respect to positive thoughts. Irrespective of condition, both social anxiety and depression predicted greater postevent rumination and negative thoughts 1 week later. With respect to the content of postevent rumination, socially anxious individuals reported being more concerned about some aspects of the presentation (e.g. poor posture), whereas other concerns were equally noted regardless of social anxiety level (e.g. poor content). The present results highlight the potential clinical utility of distracting from social anxiety to allow for greater access to positive thoughts postevent.

No abstract

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was developed to prevent relapse in individuals with depressive disorders. This widely used intervention has garnered considerable attention and a comprehensive review of current trends is warranted. As such, this review provides an overview of efficacy, mechanisms of action, and concludes with a discussion of dissemination. Results provided strong support for the efficacy of MBCT despite some methodological shortcomings in the reviewed literature. With respect to mechanisms of action, specific elements, such as mindfulness, repetitive negative thinking, self-compassion and affect, and cognitive reactivity have emerged as important mechanisms of change. Finally, despite a lack of widespread MBCT availability outside urban areas, research has shown that self-help variations are promising. Combined with findings that teacher competence may not be a significant predictor of treatment outcome, there are important implications for dissemination. Taken together, this review shows that while MBCT is an effective treatment for depression, continued research in the areas of efficacy, mechanisms of action, and dissemination are recommended.