Facilitating Psychological Closure and Emotional Change Through Mindfulness Meditation
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Mindfulness Meditation, Mind-Wandering Task.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Unresolved Event Memories, Psychological Closure. Basic parameters: from 18 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Canada
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Mindful Recollection: Attending to the Present Before Resolving the Past
Overview
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if mindfulness meditation can improve closure and emotion towards unresolved memories in an undergraduate student population. This will be tested through a brief, novel intervention called Mindful Recollection, where participants transition immediately from mindfulness meditation into the recollection of an unresolved memory. The secondary aim of the study is to investigate the mechanisms of change underlying Mindful Recollection. Overall then, the main questions this study aims to answer are: * Does mindful recollection reduce negative emotions associated with unresolved event memories? * Can increases in acceptance, decentering, and reappraisal account for the observed effects of mindful recollection on negative emotion? * Does mindful recollection facilitate closure towards unresolved event memories? * Can increases in acceptance, decentering, and reappraisal account for the observed effects of mindful recollection on closure? Researchers will compare the Mindful Recollection intervention to a mind-wandering control task to see if mindfulness meditation uniquely produces positive changes in emotion and closure above and beyond placebo. Mindful Recollection will involve a 13-minute audio-guided mindfulness meditation followed immediately by 2 minutes of memory recollection. The control task will involve 13-minutes of audio-guided mind-wandering followed immediately by 2 minutes of memory recollection. Participants will: * Complete pretest measures of emotion and closure towards an unresolved event memory. * Engage in either the Mindful Recollection intervention or the placebo control task after a 24-72 hour delay. * Complete post-test measures of emotion and closure towards the same unresolved event memory.
Interventions
- Behavioral Mindfulness Meditation
Mindful Recollection consists of a 15-minute audio-guided task (13 minutes of guided meditation followed immediately by 2 minutes of unresolved event recollection). The 13-minute guided meditation is intended to facilitate a broad mindful awareness by working through sensations of the breath, body, and mind (in that respective order), eventually coming together in a practice of open monitoring - the non-selective observation of any and all aspects of experience. The 2-minute recollection period - Behavioral Mind-Wandering Task
The mind-wandering control task consists of a 15-minute audio-guided task (13 minutes of mind-wandering followed immediately by 2 minutes of unresolved event recollection). Mind-wandering is a common sham mindfulness technique that repeatedly prompts participants to let their thoughts flow freely, thinking about whatever comes to mind. This exposes participants to the same procedure (i.e., listening to a 13-minute audio-recording) without receiving guided mindful meditation instructions. Thus, t
Primary outcome measures
- Pre- to Post-Test Changes in Psychological Closure using the Closure and Resolution Scale (CRS) [Time frame: Baseline (24-72 hours prior to the intervention) and post-test (immediately after intervention)]
- Pre- to Post-Test Changes in Negative Emotion using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) [Time frame: Baseline (24-72 hours prior to the intervention) and post-test (immediately after intervention)]
Secondary outcome measures (3)
- Experiential Acceptance Towards Thoughts and Emotions [Time frame: Immediately after the intervention (post-test)]
- Reappraisal [Time frame: Immediately after the intervention (post-test)]
- State Decentering [Time frame: Immediately after the intervention (post-test)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Ability to hear and understand spoken instructions clearly; English language proficiency
Exclusion criteria
- Trauma history/Dissociative tendencies
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
Canada · 1 center
- University of Windsor — Windsor
Publications
- Luchetti M, Sutin AR. Measuring the phenomenology of autobiographical memory: A short form of the Memory Experiences Questionnaire. Memory. 2016;24(5):592-602. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2015.1031679. Epub 2015 Apr 20. PMID 25894806
- De France, K., & Hollenstein, T. (2017). Assessing emotion regulation repertoires: The Regulation of Emotion Systems Survey. Personality and Individual Differences, 119, 204-215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.07.018
- McAndrews, Z., Hart, C. M., & Stopa, L. (2024). Development of the Southampton Experiential Avoidance and Acceptance Scale (SEAAS). Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 33, 100822-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2024.100822
- Tanay G, Bernstein A. State Mindfulness Scale (SMS): development and initial validation. Psychol Assess. 2013 Dec;25(4):1286-99. doi: 10.1037/a0034044. Epub 2013 Sep 23. PMID 24059475
- Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988 Jun;54(6):1063-70. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.54.6.1063. PMID 3397865
- Hanley AW, Bernstein A, Nakamura Y, Hadash Y, Rojas J, Tennant KE, Jensen RL, Garland EL. The Metacognitive Processes of Decentering Scale: Development and initial validation of trait and state versions. Psychol Assess. 2020 Oct;32(10):956-971. doi: 10.1037/pas0000931. Epub 2020 Jul 23. PMID 32700920
- Boucher CM, Scoboria A, Soucie K, Pascual-Leone A. Development and validation of the Closure and Resolution Scale (CRS). Memory. 2025 Feb;33(2):205-222. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2024.2427666. Epub 2024 Nov 19. PMID 39561135
Identifiers
NCT: NCT07437092 · REB #25-135