Date of Award

12-2011

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Clinical Psychology

First Advisor

Lizabeth Roemer

Second Advisor

Sarah Hayes-Skelton

Third Advisor

Laurel Wainwright

Abstract

Mindfulness- and acceptance-based treatments are currently being used to treat a variety of medical and mental health difficulties. Most of these treatments teach formal mindfulness practices which aim at developing mindfulness skills. However, little is known about the relationships among amount of formal mindfulness practice, changes in mindfulness skills, and changes in outcome variables. An acceptance-based behavior therapy (ABBT) has been shown to be particularly effective in the treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD; Roemer & Orsillo, 2007; Roemer, Orsillo, & Salters-Pednault, 2008). This study explored the relationships among formal mindfulness practice, skills, and outcomes in the context of an ABBT for people with GAD using latent growth curve modeling. Across treatment, participants reported significant improvements of large effect size in measures of mindfulness skills, quality of life, and worry. However, latent growth curve analysis failed to show relationships between the frequency of formal practice reported during the first quarter of treatment and changes in these variables. Residual gains of mindfulness skills were significantly positively correlated with residual gains in quality of life, and significantly negatively correlated with residual gains in worry. The results highlight the complexity of the relationship between formal mindfulness practice, mindfulness skills, and outcome variables. Study limitations and future directions are discussed.

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