Calming Minds Study

Summary

The goal of this study is to understand why certain treatments help people reduce repetitive negative thinking (RNT), which is common in many mental health problems. We want to:

1. Figure out what actually causes repetitive negative thinking to decrease when people use cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
2. Find out which parts of RNT-focused CBT are the most important - the parts that truly make a difference in reducing RNT.

The main result we will look at is how much a person's repetitive negative thought patterns change from the start of the study to the end of treatment (16 weeks). We will measure this using the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire at baseline and week 16.

Conditions

• Anxiety
• Anxiety Depression
• Worry
• Depression
• Rumination - Thoughts

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Be Specific

Digital therapy lessons and coaching that emphasize skills in shifting from unhelpful abstract to helpful concrete processing style. Helping participants make changes to processing style to improve problem-solving and reduce emotional reactivity. Training concrete thinking to reduce RNT by increasing specific contextualized detail in description of events and plans.

BEHAVIORAL

Be Kind

Digital therapy lessons and coaching that emphasize skills for replacing self-criticism with self-compassion. Helping participants shift toward a kinder, more validating way of relating to themselves to reduce the emotional patterns that sustain RNT. Training self-compassion skills to counter harsh self-evaluation and support emotional regulation.

BEHAVIORAL

Be Present

Digital therapy lessons and coaching that emphasize skills for improving attention to present-moment experience. Helping participants redirect attention away from unhelpful mental ruminations by strengthening mindfulness and task absorption. Training present-moment awareness to interrupt the cognitive processes that maintain RNT by cultivating absorption in direct sensory experience.

BEHAVIORAL

Break Habit

Digital therapy lessons and coaching that emphasize skills for disrupting repetitive negative thinking as a habitual mental behavior. Helping participants identify early warning signs, use stimulus-control strategies, form implementation intentions, and practice alternative responses to build more adaptive habits. Training new behavioral and cognitive routines to replace automatic RNT patterns.

BEHAVIORAL

Psychoeducation

Digital therapy lessons and coaching that provide foundational information about repetitive negative thinking and why it occurs. Helping participants understand explanations for their symptoms and difficulties, which reduces the search for understanding, insight and certainty shown to drive RNT, and normalizes their experiences. This corresponds with the RF-CBT components of individualized rationale, psychoeducation, empathy and understanding.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Exeter

  collaborator OTHER

• University of California, Los Angeles

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-06-08

Primary Completion

2028-06-14

Completion

2028-06-14

Countries

• United States

Study Locations