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What Causes What
MECHANISM− DECREASES

Mindfulness-based training → Depression

Higher Mindfulness-based training decreases Depression.

Ritvo 2021 found that online mindfulness-based CBT plus monthly psychiatry cut Beck depression scores by 8.54 points versus psychiatry alone in 45 young adults with major depression. Cladder-Micus 2019's MBCT add-on in chronic treatment-resistant depression missed on the IDS-SR in intention-to-treat and still raised partial remission.

Randomized trial · Moderate · N=106

Supported by an experiment or a tightly identified design. Read the caveats.

Mechanism

MBCT teaches people to notice a familiar train of thought and to let it pass instead of arguing with it. Segal, Williams, and Teasdale built the eight-week group on that idea. Rumination is the named path. Cladder-Micus, Speckens, Vrijsen and colleagues assigned 106 Dutch outpatients with a current DSM-IV episode lasting at least a year, an IDS-SR of 21 or more, and a failed run of both an antidepressant and CBT or IPT. Forty-nine got the standard MBCT course plus usual care. Fifty-seven got usual care. Usual care was whatever the clinic already offered: pills, therapy, a nurse, or day hospital. At posttreatment the ITT IDS-SR difference was -3.23 (-6.99 to 0.54, d=0.35, P=0.09). Completers who sat at least four sessions differed by -4.24 (d=0.45, P=0.04). MINI remission, mostly partial, was 41.5 percent versus 21.6 percent (P=0.04). Rumination fell (d=0.39, P=0.04). People who already ruminated above a published clinical mean dropped more on the IDS-SR. Ritvo, Knyahnytska, Pirbaglou and colleagues assigned 45 CAMH outpatients aged 18 to 30 with MINI major depression and a BDI-II of 14 or more. Twenty-two got six months of online CBT-M: 24 workbooks, 56 mindfulness videos, a weekly navigator coach, and a Fitbit, on top of a monthly psychiatry visit. Twenty-three got the monthly visit alone. The ITT BDI-II difference was -8.54 (P=.01). QIDS differed by -4.94 (P=.001). A blinded Hamilton rater did not (P=.09). The Nonjudging facet of the FFMQ moved. Anxiety and pain also moved. Those are not this page.

Caveats

Cladder-Micus is open-label and add-on. Assessors who ran the MINI were not blind. A quarter of the MBCT arm sat fewer than four sessions. Full MINI remission was rare (one person versus two). The ITT primary missed. Netherlands, 2013 to 2016. The paper names 106 people. Ritvo is 45 people. The control arm lost 61 percent. The assigned package mixes CBT workbooks, mindfulness videos, coaching, and a step counter. Psychiatrists were not blind. The blinded Hamilton contrast missed. CAMH, Toronto. The paper names 45 people. This page is not a walk and not hours in bed. those pages are the exercise-and-depression page and the sleep-and-depression page. More papers of the same design do not settle the claim. This is a journal entry, not medical advice and it is not a reason to start or skip a class.

Effect

qualitative. Cladder-Micus 2019 ITT IDS-SR -3.23 (d=0.35, P=0.09), N=106; MINI remission 41.5% vs 21.6%. Ritvo 2021 ITT BDI-II MD -8.54, P=.01, N=45. Archive n empty.

Nodes

Psychology & behaviorMindfulness-based trainingPsychology & behaviorDepression

Named confounders

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Mindfulness-based training → Depression.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-mindfulness-depression (atlas updated 2026-09-02).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-mindfulness-depression

Papers