A four-week randomised trial found that two meditation styles—focused-attention and self-inquiry—significantly reduced depressive symptoms compared with a wait-list control among adults without a diagnosed depression. The study also suggested the two practices may operate through partially different psychological processes.
The research contributes to a long-running discussion about why meditation helps depression, exploring how cognitive decentering and a broader sense of selflessness may interrupt patterns of negative thinking and identity threat that often underpin depressive states. The authors note that meditation is not a single technique and that different practices may influence these processes in distinct ways.
The study was conducted by Céline Stinus of the University of Navarra in Spain and Sophie Berjot of the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France. They compared focused-attention meditation, which involves sustaining attention on a chosen object such as the breath, with self-inquiry meditation, in which participants examine thoughts, beliefs and the sense of self by asking questions about their origins and influence. The self-inquiry programme used in the trial was secular and did not include Buddhist teachings.
Participants were 147 adults recruited in France via social media, university campuses and professional networks. Exclusion criteria included current psychiatric medication use, prior diagnosis of depression or other psychiatric conditions, or extensive meditation experience.
In the final analysis, 49 participants were assigned to each of the three groups: focused-attention meditation, self-inquiry meditation, and a wait-list control. The average ages were about 49 in the focused-attention group, 46 in the self-inquiry group, and 44 in the control group, with the majority of participants in all three groups being women.
Both meditation groups completed five 60-minute online group sessions over four weeks, led by the study’s first author, plus 20 minutes of individual practice per day, five days a week. Attendance and home practice were similar across the two meditation groups.
Assessments were conducted one week before the programmes began and within seven days of completion. They measured depressive symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), dysfunctional attitudes (Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale), identity threat (Threat Appraisal Subscale of the Cognitive Appraisal Scale), cognitive decentering (Metacognitive Processes of Decentering Trait scale), and connectedness to nature and to humanity (Connectedness to Nature Scale and Connectedness to Humanity Scale).
Compared with the wait-list control, both meditation programmes produced greater reductions in depressive symptoms and identity threat, with moderate effect sizes, and both increased cognitive decentering. There were no reliable differences between the two meditation styles on these outcomes. Contrary to expectations, only the focused-attention group showed a reduction in dysfunctional attitudes relative to the wait-list; the self-inquiry group did not.
The two meditation programmes did not differ reliably from the wait-list group in their overall effects on connectedness to humanity or nature. However, exploratory analyses suggested that only the self-inquiry group showed increases in both forms of connectedness from before to after the programme.
Exploratory analyses of the processes behind these changes indicated that, in the focused-attention group, increases in cognitive decentering fully explained the reduction in depressive symptoms and partly explained the reduction in dysfunctional attitudes. In the self-inquiry group, increases in connectedness to humanity partly explained reductions in identity threat. Interestingly, increases in connectedness to nature in this group were linked to smaller reductions in identity threat, and none of the measured processes accounted for the self-inquiry group’s reduction in depressive symptoms. As these analyses were performed separately within each group, they do not permit direct statistical comparison of the two practices’ mechanisms.
“Attentional and deconstructive meditation practices yield comparable benefits for depression-related outcomes but operate through partially distinct mechanisms. Cognitive decentering played a central mechanism in attentional meditation [the focused-attention meditation procedure] while deconstructive practice [the self-inquiry meditation procedure] showed exploratory associations with connectedness [to nature and to humanity], warranting cautious interpretation,” the study authors concluded.
Researchers caution that several limitations affect the findings. Participants in the wait-list knew they were not receiving treatment, and all outcomes were self-reported, raising the possibility of expectancy effects and response biases. The sample consisted of individuals without depression diagnoses and with low average depression scores, potentially limiting generalisability to clinical populations.
Additional caveats include that both meditation programmes were delivered by the same instructor, who was also the study’s first author, leaving open the possibility of instructor-related effects. Dropouts were higher in the wait-list group (about 20) than in the meditation groups (around four to five per group), and the trial was not preregistered nor followed up long-term. The sample was predominantly female and may reflect self-selection biases for participation in a meditation study.
The paper presenting the findings is titled “Preventing Depression through Selflessness: Effects and Mechanisms of Attentional vs. Deconstructive Meditation in a Three–Arm Randomized Controlled Trial,” and is authored by Céline Stinus and Sophie Berjot.
