Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
February 18, 2010
628 citations
An 8-week stress reduction program based on mindfulness meditation led to greater reductions in overall psychological symptoms, increased sense of control and acceptance, and higher spiritual experience scores compared to a nonintervention control group. The techniques may offer a cognitive behavioral coping strategy for responding to life events and could help prevent relapse in affective disorders.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
January 1, 2006
155 citations
A pilot study tested lucid dreaming treatment (LDT) for chronic nightmares. Twenty-three nightmare sufferers were randomly assigned to an individual LDT session, a group LDT session, or a waiting list. Twelve weeks later, nightmare frequency decreased in both treatment groups. Sleep quality and posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity showed no significant changes. Becoming lucid during nightmares was not necessary for the reduction in nightmare frequency. The key therapeutic component—exposure, mastery, or lucidity—remains unclear.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
January 1, 2017
Samuel T. Wilkinson, Dashaun Wright, Madonna K. Fasula et al.
120 citations
Ketamine provides rapid but short-lived antidepressant effects. In an open-label trial, patients with treatment-resistant depression received a 2-week course of intravenous ketamine alongside a 10-week course of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Of 16 participants, 8 responded to ketamine and 7 achieved remission in the first 2 weeks. Among responders, 25% relapsed by the end of CBT, and the median time to relapse was 12 weeks after ketamine. Among remitters, 2 of 7 maintained remission through 8 weeks after ketamine. Ketamine nonresponders did not benefit from CBT. The combination may help sustain ketamine's effects, but randomized controlled trials are needed.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
February 18, 2010
Antonio L. Zadra, Robert O. Pihl
120 citations
Lucid dreaming, where a person becomes aware they are dreaming while still asleep, can help treat recurrent nightmares. In five cases, treatments combining relaxation, guided imagery, and lucid dream induction, or induction alone, eliminated nightmares in four people and reduced their intensity and frequency in the fifth over a one-year follow-up. These results align with earlier reports and suggest that training in lucid dreaming has therapeutic value, though it remains unclear whether the benefit comes from lucidity itself or the ability to change the dream.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
January 1, 2021
Samuel t. Wilkinson, Taeho greg Rhee, Jutta Joormann et al.
102 citations
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may help sustain the antidepressant effects of ketamine in people with treatment-resistant depression. In a trial, 42 patients with treatment-resistant depression received six intravenous ketamine infusions over three weeks. The 28 who responded were then randomized to CBT or treatment as usual for 14 weeks. On one depression scale, the CBT group showed significantly greater sustained improvement, with a moderate-to-large effect size. A smaller subset of ketamine responders also improved in emotional cognitive accuracy, while nonresponders did not. The findings are preliminary and need confirmation in larger trials.
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
June 12, 2026
Thorsten Barnhofer, Maria Niemi, Johannes Michalak et al.
1 citation
For adults with difficult-to-treat depression—those who have not responded to prior treatments, have treatment-resistant depression, or have a chronic course—mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is likely superior to usual care, reducing depressive symptoms by a standardized mean difference of -0.40 at post-treatment and -0.41 at medium-term follow-up. There was a 92% and 85% probability, respectively, that these benefits exceeded a minimal important difference. However, MBCT did not show clear superiority over other active psychosocial interventions, and no robust moderators of outcome were identified across baseline severity, chronicity, or comorbidity.