Treating depression is no easy, or cheap, feat. I currently suffer from depression, and, without insurance, my medication would be about $30 a month. On top of that, I used to get counseling every Wednesday for about a year, and each of these sessions were $125. We had to cut down on certain things, such as extracurriculars, to afford my therapy sessions, but a new study has suggested a more cost-effective way to treat depression: group mindfulness.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are finding that group mindfulness exercises are as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is your classic one-on-one therapy sessions, in treating depression and anxiety. They are also more cost effective and convenient. The way researchers went about conducting this experiment was by gathering a group of 215 subjects, all of whom suffered from anxiety, depression, or severe stress responses. These participants were, then, split into two groups. One group went through CBT while the other group went through 10-member group mindfulness sessions, both of which were conducted over eight weeks. Both before and after the treatments, the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire to figure out their levels of anxiety or depression, and among both groups, the participants reported feeling less depressed or anxious than they did before, significantly suggesting the effectiveness of group mindfulness. The lead researcher of the study even suggested that group mindfulness can be an alternative to individual psychotherapy. There is even scientific proof that this form of therapy is effective. According to Harvard researchers, “MRI data revealed that meditation increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, a region associated with learning and memory, and decreased density in the amygdala, a brain region associated with fear, anxiety and stress responses.” This could easily be a huge breakthrough in the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders.
I found this very interesting because a lot of people do unfortunately suffer from depression and anxiety. I agree with the past comment in which I am not fully convinced that these group mindfulness sessions are effective. I do not see how they can hurt, but I don’t see them helping as much as medication and other things. Do you know what the sessions entailed? What kind of activities were included in the sessions? Maybe it was just what they were doing that calmed them down momentarily. Do you think the groups would be more or less effective if they contained more or less than 10 people? I also think that the participants could have just said that they felt less depressed after because they knew they were being studied, it is hard to base information off of surveys. I feel they aren’t just going to stop CBT for these group sessions because as ridiculous as it sounds, therapists make so much money from it. After looking up the topic, I found that the experiment was done in Sweden. Maybe it would have different effects in the United States.
This is a very interesting post! I know a lot of people who struggle with depression and I think it would be awesome if this treatment worked. However, the study did not fully convince me that the group mindfulness sessions would work. The study was very small. Only 215 people participated in it. The study would have to be bigger and test a lot more people for the results to be accurate. Also, it was unclear how severe the participants depression was. People suffer from depression in all different ways. People also cope with things differently too. The group mindfulness sessions are probably effective for some people, but I do not think that this study would work for everyone. I would be interested to see additional research on this topic! Overall, great post!