Limitations and Directions for Future Research
This study is limited by the lack of a control group or active comparison clinical intervention
that would help delineate more clearly how SRP is modified by MBSR. Future research with
control groups will be necessary in order to address potential factors that might be contributing
to changes in self-view, such as practice effects and habituation to the scanner environment. It
may be instructive to compare the effects of different clinical interventions with different mechanisms
of change (e.g., cognitive disputation, acceptance, attention training) on the neural bases
of SRP.
There is a need for better behavioral and neural assessment of different modes of SRP,
including narrative/conceptual, experiential, and other forms. This study examined only
experimenter-selected positive and negative social trait adjectives. Patient-generated stimuli
may result in more robust brain–behavior responses in patients with SAD. This would provide
a more ecologically valid test of the effects of clinical interventions on SRP.
In the present study, it was not possible to examine temporal dynamics of participants’
responses because word stimuli were presented for only 3 seconds each. Use of longer stimulus
durations may allow for examination of sustained cognitive processes (e.g., negative rumination)
and differential temporal features of BOLD responses in SRP midline structures.
Finally, the MBSR course was offered by the primary investigator of this study, and thus the
course instructor was not blind to the study outcome measures. Future studies will benefit from
having different individuals serve as the research investigator and the course instructor