This is the third Moroccan blog post.  It introduces some ideas about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), self-criticism and problem solving.

So yesterday we drove East and South from Marrakech across the Atlas - the road, our driver said, winding up to over 6,500 feet (about 2,000 meters) before heading back down to the plain that eventually after many kilometers will become the Sahara.

This is the first of 11 blog posts about going to Morocco to walk "mindfully" in the Sahara desert.  This post gives a bit of background to the trip.

6.00am - the old clock has just sounded in my cousin's house in London. We arrived yesterday evening, flew down from Edinburgh, came across London, had a great meal with my cousin, his wife, their daughter, and dear Kieran, our son, who'd cycled over from his flat further East. I woke this morning an hour or so ago and lay thinking about the trip ahead. At 8.00am, Catero, my wife, and I are due to head down to Victoria and take a train out to Gatwick airport. Hopefully we'll meet up with four friends there and catch a plane to Marrakech. We should then get together with a couple more friends at the little hotel we've booked in the Medina. Tomorrow we're due to be picked up by two 4x4's and driven over the Atlas mountains down towards the Sahara desert.

what are implementation intentions?
"Goal intentions" involve aiming for some desired future outcome.  They are of the form "I intend to attain goal X".  Unfortunately we know only too well that making such intentions does not necessarily mean that we will reach our goals.  As the old saying goes "There's many a slip between cup and lip".  A major review of 422 relevant research studies found that goal intentions accounted for only an average 28% of the variance in achievement of successful outcome (Sheeran, 2002).  Subsequent research suggests that even this figure of 28% is an overestimate (Webb and Sheeran, 2006).  The conclusion is clear - forming a strong goal intention to achieve some desired outcome in no way guarantees success. 

Cipriani and colleagues published a major multiple-treatments meta-analysis of new generation antidepressants last week - see abstract below.  As Parikh wrote in his linked editorial (see below) "Andrea Cipriani and colleagues provide the field with a major answer.  Free of any potential funding bias (and including an analysis of studies based on pharmaceutical-company sponsorship), these researchers used a newer methodology, multiple treatments meta-analysis, to examine 117 head-to-head randomised trials in almost 26 000 patients ... Of 12 newer antidepressants, four emerged as superior in efficacy: escitalopram, mirtazapine, sertraline, and venlafaxine ... In terms of acceptability, four agents were better tolerated: bupropion, citalopram, escitalopram, and sertraline.  Balancing efficacy and acceptability and lower drug costs, the researchers concluded that sertraline might be particularly appropriate as a first-choice treatment ... "  This is superbly useful information.  Parikh's editorial goes on to raise helpful queries about next step questions, however Cipriani et al have done antidepressant prescribers and users a major service with this very important paper.