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Mindfulness beats traditional psychology (CBT) when treating stress

New research has compared the effectiveness of Mindfulness with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in regards to treating stress.

Study participants undertook either an 8 week program on CBT or mindfulness. CBT is a western approach which involves indentifying irrational thoughts and replacing them with more rational thoughts whereas mindfulness is an eastern perspective that involves learning to accept thoughts.

Mindfulness was more effective than CBT with regards to decreasing levels of stress, depression and pain. It was also more effective in increasing levels of wellbeing and energy. In addition CBT had no effect on levels of pain  and energy.

The researchers also found that CBT decreased levels of mindfulness, which might be problematic given that the benefit in stress reduction appears to be due to the mindfulness.

The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Volume 14, Number 3, 2008, pp. 251–258

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Mindfulness, Stress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Mindfulness beats traditional psychology (CBT) when treating stress”

  1. Innate Intelligence - The Science of Thriving » Blog Archive » Why I wouldn’t do a course in positive psychology Says:
    February 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    […] emerging from positive psychology. For example it doesn’t reflect research that suggests that mindfulness is more powerful than the cognitive behavioural therapy models that Seligman promotes. As a consequence most positive psychology courses are based on […]

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