Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Reducing Worry and Anxiety in Depressed Females

Treatment of each disorder in cognitive therapy approach depends on the formulation of that disorder. At the beginning of formation of cognitive therapy for treatment of depression experts were concentrating on concepts such as schema, assumptions and cognitive error and especially negative automatic thoughts that are used in formulation and treatment of depression, but nowadays the emphasis is more on the concept of worry. The current research aims to survey the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on reducing anxiety and worry in non-patient depressed females. To this aim from 800 females visiting Mahak counselling center in Gorgan 210 individuals were randomly chosen and from these individuals 32 individuals who had 15-30 and higher beck depression scores were chosen by drawing and they were put into two groups of experimental and control group. All individuals answered beck depression Inventory, Pen state worry questionnaire (PSWQ) and beck anxiety inventory after the beginning of training at the desired stages (4th and 6th sessions and 30 and 50 days) after the end of training. The experimental group had 8 weekly sessions of two hours for mindfulness training and the control group did not receive any trainings. In order to analyze data the t-test and two-way ANOVA test with repeated measuring were used. Results showed that mindfulness therapy method is effective on reducing worry and anxiety in depressed females.