title: Refraining from intrusive thoughts is strategy dependent: a comment on Sugiura, et al. And a preliminary informal test of detached mindfulness, acceptance, and other strategies.
abstract: The control of cognition is fundamental to psychological well being. One dimension recently explored by Sugiura, Sugiura and Tanno (2013) is the perceived ability to refrain from catastrophic thinking-a construct that could be a marker of several factors. The current paper recommends deeper consideration in terms of metacognitive theory and exemplifies this by testing the effect of a strategy that focuses on abstaining from processes (detached mindfulness) vs. transforming content (acceptance, brief exposure). Fifty-six participants (M age = 21.5 yr., range = 18-42) were randomly assigned to detached mindfulness, acceptance, exposure, or a control group before watching a stressful film that induced intrusive images. Afterwards, they engaged in their respective strategies for 5 min. and the frequency of intrusive images was rated. Detached mindfulness was the only manipulation that was associated with a statistically significant lower frequency of intrusions than the control condition. It is argued that assessment of perceived skills to refrain from thinking should be conceptualized within a metacognitive framework that distinguish process- and content-oriented strategies and address the question: When is a strategy a true refrain?
authors.affiliation: 1 University of Manchester, UK.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.forename: Panagiotis
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Roussis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D064866:Mindfulness; D011897:Random Allocation; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult