The goals of MCT are first to discover what patients believe about their own thoughts and about how their mind works (called metacognitive beliefs), then to show the patient how these beliefs lead to unhelpful responses to thoughts that serve to unintentionally prolong or worsen symptoms, and finally to provide alternative ways of responding to thoughts in order to allow a reduction of symptoms. In clinical practice, MCT is most commonly used for treating anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), health anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as depression – though the model was designed to be transdiagnostic (meaning it focuses on common psychological factors thought to maintain all psychological disorders).
^Mulder, Roger; Murray, Greg; Rucklidge, Julia (December 2017). "Common versus specific factors in psychotherapy: opening the black box". The Lancet. Psychiatry. 4 (12): 953–962. doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(17)30100-1. PMID28689019.
^Normann, Nicoline; van Emmerik, Arnold A. P.; Morina, Nexhmedin (May 2014). "The efficacy of metacognitive therapy for anxiety and depression: a meta-analytic review". Depression and Anxiety. 31 (5): 402–11. doi:10.1002/da.22273. PMID24756930. S2CID205736364.