Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    The Say Yes to Life (SYTL) Program: A Positive Psychology Group Intervention for Depression
    (Springer, 2015-06) ;
    Patients and referrers are increasingly seeking effective psychological treatments for depression as an alternative or adjunct to antidepressant medication. This paper describes a new group-based psychological intervention for major depressive disorder—the Say 'Yes' to Life (SYTL) program. This program integrates evidence-based interventions from cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and positive psychology, spans 20 2-hour sessions, and is offered to groups of up to 14 participants.
      1253Scopus© Citations 8
  • Publication
    A Controlled Evaluation of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Patients with Coronary Heart Disease and Depression
    This study evaluated the effectiveness of an eight-session mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) group intervention programme for treating depression in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients. Thirty-two depressed CHD patients were assigned to an MBCT treatment group, and a demographically and clinically similar group of 30 cases were assigned to a waiting list control group. Participants were evaluated at baseline, 8 weeks, and 6-month follow-up with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Profile of Mood States (POMS), Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). After each session, MBCT participants completed the post-session Questionnaire on helpful aspects of therapy and after the programme, completed the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire. At follow-up, 71 % of the MBCT group was clinically recovered from depression compared with 50 % of the control group. The MBCT group showed significantly greater improvement than the control group on all measures with effect sizes at follow-up of d = 0.43–1.0. Increases in mindfulness on the MAAS correlated significantly with improvements on the HADS, BSI, POMS and PAIS. Key helpful aspects of therapy identified by MBCT participants included learning meditation, obtaining group support and developing optimism. There was a high level of satisfaction with the MBCT programme. These results indicate that a randomized controlled trial of MBCT for depressed CHD patients is now warranted.
      903Scopus© Citations 25