How do cbt and mbct differ

Therapists who practice CBT generally practice talk therapy that relies on several guiding features. Those features include:. While some emphasis is put on dealing with thoughts, patients are taught to identify triggers outside of themselves and match those triggers with a healthy coping mechanism or response.

Not all mental illnesses respond to treatment in the same way. A therapy technique that works well for depression and anxiety can exacerbate eating disorders or personality disorders. CBT has been shown to be incredibly effective when treating depression, and is more likely to make depression go into remission than other types of therapy.

This method of therapy has also been proven beneficial in treating anxiety, as it gives patients control over their recovery. CBT has also been shown to help with obsessive compulsive disorder OCD , phobias, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleeping issues.

DBT was created to help those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. DBT focuses on helping people change their behavior patterns, as opposed to trying to think or talk through the issues they are struggling with.

This type of CBT helps those who have developed patterns of intense emotional reactions and impulsive behaviors in response to what patients describe as overwhelming feelings of pain and rejection — the feeling of walking through a world filled with knives.

DBT often is the most effective therapy for those who struggle with self-harm behaviors like cutting and chronic suicidal ideation. Sexual trauma survivors also respond well to DBT techniques. CBT focuses on reasoning and rationale, as most commonly found in stoic philosophy and the Socratic Method. The Socratic Method uses critical thinking to question assumptions in place.

This works well for those who suffer with anxiety and depression, as it helps them to see their problems from a more logical point of view. For example, clients who struggle with feelings of failure and inadequacy are asked to look at the facts. We compared the acceptability and impact of an adapted MBCT intervention with a minimal treatment control condition a self-help CBT psycho-educational guide in students experiencing difficulties due to perfectionism.

MBCT participants had significantly lower levels of perfectionism concern over mistakes and personal standards , clinical perfectionism and stress at post-treatment than self-help participants, adjusting for baseline levels.

These benefits in perfectionism were maintained at week follow-up, at which point the MBCT group also had lower levels impairment caused by perfectionism than the self-help group. Similarly, a greater proportion of MBCT than self-help participants showed reliable change in perfectionism at post-treatment and clinical perfectionism at follow-up. Overall, these findings suggest that the adapted MBCT shows promise as an intervention for those experiencing difficulties related to perfectionism and is more beneficial than a pure CBT self-help guide.

The degree of change in the perfectionism measures is not as large as in individual CBT for perfectionism e. However, the confidence intervals around the mean group differences in the current study are relatively large due to the small sample size. Therefore, it is possible that future research using a larger sample that allowed more precise estimates may find larger effect sizes. This mindfulness intervention had additional benefits such as reductions in unhelpful beliefs about emotions, decentering and improvements in self-compassion and mindfulness which are not typically reported in CBT intervention studies and which may have wider benefits for participants beyond their perfectionism.

Furthermore, mindfulness training is currently generally popular and may be perceived by students experiencing perfectionism as being more attractive and potentially less stigmatising than attending therapy. This is particularly important as individuals experiencing difficulties with perfectionism do not typically present at clinical services seeking help for their perfectionism.

The intervention is provided in a group setting, which, alongside Handley et al. Furthermore, in many locations, mindfulness or meditation groups are available to the general public which can provide support for an ongoing mindfulness practice. This may be important for maintenance of gains. Potential mechanisms of change were also investigated, with analyses suggesting that the MBCT group had significantly lower levels of unhelpful beliefs about emotions and rumination, and higher levels of mindfulness, self-compassion and decentering at post-treatment, in comparison with the self-help group.

Of these processes, there was evidence that self-compassion was particularly important, as changes in this process were found to mediate the effect of MBCT versus self-help on clinical perfectionism. This is consistent with evidence of self-compassion as a mediator in MBCT for recurrent depression Kuyken et al. However, it should be noted that mediation analyses should preferably include a mediator measured at a time point between the independent and dependent variables, so these analyses should only be regarded as exploratory.

Future studies should investigate self-compassion further as a potential mediator and could also investigate whether greater emphasis on self-compassion would improve the treatment effect sizes.

Treatment completion for the MBCT was moderately good. Those who did not complete MBCT primarily suggested that finding the time to commit to it was difficult, with many acknowledging that this was related to their perfectionism. This is consistent with evidence that despite identifying many negative consequences of perfectionism, individuals reported numerous benefits and often prefer not to change their perfectionism Egan et al. While this was not statistically different, this could be a power issue.

The MBCT participants may have been willing to remain engaged despite the greater time involved because of the higher perceived usefulness or early impact of this intervention compared to the self-help.

No significant differences in baseline characteristics between those who remained in the study or dropped out were found. Drop-out rates should be considered in future studies as this may affect statistical power and limit generalizability. The use of LOCF as a way to manage missing data may have introduced bias into the results and resulted in confidence intervals that are too narrow Altman , therefore per protocol analyses have also been provided as supplementary information.

In addition, the psycho-educational condition was developed specifically for this study, as resources were not available to provide participants with a previously evaluated self-help book, and the follow-up time period was relatively short 10 weeks.

However, as MBCT was a face-to-face group intervention, non-specific factors, such as therapist and social support or learning from the contributions of other participants, may have influenced the results. Similarly, the current study was not designed to test whether the mindfulness components of the new intervention were the reason for any differences between the two groups.

Supported self-help would be an alternative cost-effective control condition which might help match the two groups for levels of participant engagement.

In conclusion, this study suggests that MBCT shows promise as an intervention for students experiencing difficulties as a result of perfectionism. MBCT for perfectionism needs investigation in larger-scale studies. Further research could also compare MBCT and group-based CBT for perfectionism in terms of recruitment, acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness.

Importantly, given the findings related to the role of self-compassion, future studies should also further investigate how change in this variable is most effectively achieved and the impact this has on levels of perfectionism and its associated psychological difficulties.

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Journal of Abnormal Psychology, , — Pleva, J. Guided self-help versus pure self-help for perfectionism: a randomised controlled trial. CBT would encourage you to not accept this negative thought pattern, but to look at the ways your friend really might be busy, and to then identify the people who do like you.

The idea is to question all negative assumptions. You might remember that the last time you went out with your colleagues from the office everyone said they enjoyed your company. This might make you feel more energetic, so you call up a workmate and go out with them, or bravely go to an open social gathering and meet new friends entirely.

So by changing your thought to one of possibilities, you changed your feelings and physical energy for the better, and this changed your actions and thus your mood. Mindfulness is a mental state and therapeutic technique attained by purposefully focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly and without judgement acknowledging your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Mindfulness was taken and developed in the s as a psychological tool to manage anxiety, stress and chronic pain by Dr.

In the s it was further developed specifically to help depression. Why does this matter when it comes to depression? If we live our life in a spaced out way we are living life with our unconscious running the show, which leaves room for anxiety to take over. And if we are distracted, challenges can take us unawares and we respond reactively, flying off the handle or saying something we regret.

If we have present moment awareness we can be calmer and respond with consideration. Mindfulness helps us consider our actions and respond in thoughtful ways. And it helps us consciously choose what environments, people, and thoughts to be affected by, too. In summary mindfulness creates room for us to make clearer choices, feel more in control of our lives, be calmer and make healthy decisions, and ultimately find more joy by noticing the positive details of our lives and relationships.

MBCT was born. Like CBT, the goal is to develop consistent awareness of your thoughts and reactions so you notice when you are becoming triggered into negativity. But MBCT teaches that the best way to notice these triggers and to manage stress and anxiety is to develop ongoing awareness and acceptance of the present moment.

Instead of trying too hard to understand the thought, MBCT would promote accepting the thought without judgement and letting it drift from your mind without attaching too much meaning to it. The greater and more consistent your awareness of the present moment, the more likely it is you will catch the negative thought spirals and choose to disengage from distressing moods or worries.

CBT helps you recognise and reframe the negative thought patterns that lead to anxiety and depression. To reiterate, MBCT also helps you recognise negative thoughts, and, like CBT, to learn that thoughts are not facts but something you can take a wider view of. But MBCT then uses mindfulness — recognising what is going on for you in the present moment, how you are thinking and feeling and experiencing things right now — to help you be less caught up in mental loops in the first place.

CBT uses cognition to understand negative thought processes. It is analytical, with clients tasked with charting their emotions and reactions as homework.

The tools used in a series of MBCT sessions are quite different, and might integrate things like breath focus where you spent a few minutes putting your attention on your breathing , body scans observing the tension and sensations in the body and sitting meditation.