Application of mindfulness based cognitive therapy among individuals with Coronavirus Phobia

Pages: 124-131
Uparikar D. Premkant (Department of Clinical Psychology, Central India Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (CIIMHANS) Dewada, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh)
Gupta Pramod (Central India Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (CIIMHANS),Dewada, Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh)

Traditional CBT engaged the individual to emphasize discrepancy-based processing, where as mindfulness-based therapy focus on ‘accepting’ and ‘allowing what is’ mode, without any kind of immediate emotional stress to change. Mindfulness based psychotherapies are working on deeper level, instead of clarifying each event into positive and negative, it allows to enhance the individual abilities to learn and observe their anxiety with kindness, curiosity and becomes relaxed with being anxious. Ten individuals diagnosed with coronavirus phobia were taken from OPD of CIIMHANS, Dewada, Chhattisgarh. Amongst these, five individuals were randomly distributed in experimental group (MBCT group) and control group (TAU group). Nature of the sample was purposive sampling. Outcome variables were measured by four scales, i.e., Fear of COVID-19, Perceived Vulnerability to Disease, HAM-A, and PGWBS. MBCT group was provided with the MBCBT therapy program. Therapeutic program consisted of approximately 16-22 sessions. Improvements were found after post treatment on fear intensity, perceived vulnerability to infectibility and germ aversion, anxiety level, and psychological general well-being measures. Significantly reduced fear intensity, perceived vulnerability, anxiety level, and positive general well-being was also evident over time from pre to follow. On conclusion, present study suggests that MBCT helps peoples with coronavirus phobia on developing higher anxiety tolerance, and emotional regulatory competencies to regulate irrational anxiety.