In a world first, Professor Richard Bryant and his team at WIMR have discovered that grief-focused cognitive behaviour therapy is relatively more effective than mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in reducing prolonged grief six months after treatment.<\/p>\n
Prolonged grief disorder affects between 4% and 10% of bereaved people. It represents a major public health issue because it is associated with increased suicidal risk, cancer, immunological dysfunction, cardiac events, and functional impairment.<\/p>\n
Professor Richard Bryant explained, \u201cAlthough grief-focused cognitive behavior therapies are the most empirically supported treatment for prolonged grief disorder, many people find this treatment difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evidence suggests that a pivotal component of this treatment is actively engaging with memories of the death and associated emotions.<\/p>\n
However, up to 22% of patients report that this is excessively difficult. One key obstacle may be the difficulty in tolerating the distress associated with engaging with memories of the death.<\/p>\n
A viable alternative for treatment is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy which does not explicitly evoke distress through loss-focused strategies. Rather, it involves learning strategies that promote awareness of emotions and sensory states in a nonjudgmental manner to manage thoughts and emotions that contribute to the psychological disorder.<\/p>\n
The study led by Professor Bryant, and published in leading journal,\u00a0JAMA Psychiatry<\/em>, is the first to test the relative efficacy of grief-focused cognitive behavior therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in reducing prolonged grief disorder severity.<\/p>\n Professor Bryant says, \u201cBoth interventions were associated with reduced grief severity.\u00a0 Grief-focused cognitive behavior therapy demonstrated greater reduction in prolonged grief symptoms six months after treatment, compared to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n This discovery suggests that although both treatments may be considered for prolonged grief disorder, grief-focused cognitive behavior therapy might be the more effective choice.<\/p>\n