From basic science to clinical practice: Can cognitive behavioural therapy tasks be augmented with enhanced episodic specificity?

• Published in: Behaviour research and therapy Vol. 167; p. 104352
• Main Authors: Marsh, Laura C., Patel, Shivam D., Smith, Alicia J., So, Melody, Armstrong, Harriet, Elliott, Rachel, Watkins, Edward, Moulds, Michelle, Dalgleish, Tim, Hitchcock, Caitlin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-08-2023
• Subjects: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Depressive Disorder, Major - psychology; Depressive Disorder, Major - therapy; Emotions; Humans; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall
• ISSN: 0005-7967; 1873-622X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2023.104352

Individuals with depression typically remember their past in a generalised manner, at the cost of retrieving specific event memories. This may impair engagement with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) tasks that use concrete episodic information to challenge maladaptive beliefs, potentially limiting their therapeutic benefit. Study 1 demonstrated that an episodic specificity induction increased detail and specificity of autobiographical memory in people with major depression, relative to control conditions (N = 88). We therefore examined whether the induction enhanced the efficacy of CBT tasks that depend on episodic memory – cognitive reappraisal (Study 2, N = 30), evidence gathering (Study 2, N = 30), and planning behavioural experiments (Study 3a, N = 30). Across all three tasks, there were no significant differences in emotion- or belief-change between the specificity and control conditions. Although the induction temporarily enhanced specificity in depressed individuals, it did not significantly augment the efficacy of CBT tasks theorised to benefit from the use of specific mnemonic information.
•Several CBT exercises rely on episodic memory, and benefit from detailed retrieval.•Overgeneral memory tendencies in depression may impede engagement with CBT.•Using an induction procedure, we increased memory specificity in depressed individuals.•This induction procedure did not, however, enhance the efficacy of CBT exercises.