Facilitating Psychological Closure and Emotional Change Through Mindfulness Meditation

Mindful Recollection: Attending to the Present Before Resolving the Past

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.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Ability to hear and understand spoken instructions clearly; English language proficiency

Exclusion Criteria:

• Trauma history/Dissociative tendencies