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Positive autobiographical memories (AMs) have the potential to repair low mood, but previously depressed individuals have difficulty leveraging their positive AMs for emotion- regulation purposes. We examined whether previously depressed individuals benefit from guided, deliberate recollection of preselected AMs to counteract low mood in their daily life. Participants (N=60) were randomly allocated to retrieval of positive or neutral AMs and completed ecological momentary assessment of emotional experience for three weeks. Feelings of happiness increased only in the positive condition from pre to post AM recollection, whereas feelings of sadness decreased in both conditions. The positive AM condition was more likely to spontaneously use memory recall to counteract low mood. This effect was moderated by the strength of emotional benefit previously experienced upon recall. Strengthening positive, self-affirming AMs in daily life may provide a tool to support regulation of everyday, transient low mood in those remitted from depression. more...

The ability to retrieve specific, single-incident autobiographical memories has been consistently posited as a predictor of recurrent depression. Elucidating the role of autobiographical memory specificity in patient-response to depressive treatments may improve treatment efficacy and facilitate use of science-driven interventions. We used recent methodological advances in individual patient data meta-analysis to determine a) whether memory specificity is improved following mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), relative to control interventions, and b) whether pre-treatment memory specificity moderates treatment response. All bar one study evaluated MBCT for relapse prevention for depression. Our initial analysis therefore focussed on MBCT datasets only(n = 708), then were repeated including the additional dataset(n = 880). Memory specificity did not significantly differ from baseline to post-treatment for either MBCT and Control interventions. There was no evidence that baseline memory specificity predicted treatment response in terms of symptom-levels, or risk of relapse. Findings raise important questions regarding the role of memory specificity in depressive treatments. more...