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Mindfulness in de geestelijke gezondheidszorg: het gaat zoals het gaat Reactie op Remco Havermans

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Mindfulness in mental health care: it goes the way it goes. A reply to Remco Havermans

Recently, Havermans wrote a critique on the widespread application of mindfulness based interventions for mental health problems. I agree with the view that the exact nature of their effectiveness is not undisputable, considering methodological limitations of many studies. These limitations are mainly related with the control groups used and with the potential existence of a self-selection bias of participants, problems common to psychological intervention studies. However, data available do suggest that mindfulness-based interventions a) relieve psychological symptoms better than being on a waitlist, b) have overall comparable effectiveness to traditional approaches such as antidepressant medication, and c) are not accompanied with any known adverse effects. While more research is needed regarding the specificity of effects, mechanisms, and moderating variables, the available results suggest that the application of mindfulness based interventions for affective problems is safe and at least better than doing nothing.

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  1. Departement Medische Psychologie en Cognitieve Neuropsychologie, Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases, Universiteit van Tilburg, 90153, 5000 LE, Tilburg, The Netherland

    Ivan Nyklíček

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Nyklíček, I. Mindfulness in de geestelijke gezondheidszorg: het gaat zoals het gaat Reactie op Remco Havermans. PSYCHOL. GEZONDH. 39, 39–41 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12483-011-0007-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12483-011-0007-7

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