Depression is a common mental disorder as per the World Health Organization (WHO). As per WHO estimates, about 5% of the adult population in the world suffers from depression, amounting to 280 to 300 million sufferers worldwide (WHO, 2021). Depression is characterized by the presence of the hallmark features of low mood, decreased interest in previously pleasurable activities, and easy fatiguability, and is often accompanied by other symptoms like persistent feelings of guilt, decreased self-esteem, decreased concentration and attention, ideas of self-harm and suicide, decreased appetite, and decreased sleep. One factor that is associated to the impairment in Quality of Life in individuals with depression is the cognitive deficits accompanying the diagnosis. Cognitive deficits are a well-documented and researched symptom cluster associated with depressive disorders.

While cognitive symptoms of depression are particularly debilitating, persist beyond affective symptom remission, and increase risk of relapse, they are not targeted or resolved by evidence-based pharmacotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic treatment. Existing cognitive training interventions which target the cognitive symptoms.

• Are time and labour-intensive, posing significant challenges in the acceptability and feasibility of the interventions.
• Do not focus on the broad generalization of the treatment gains to everyday functioning.
• Do not emphasize the subjective perception of cognitive deficits, and their contribution to disruption in socio-occupational functioning.

In light of the above-highlighted gaps in the literature, the Integrated Cognitive Control Training (ICCT) intervention, a cognitive training intervention with components of cognitive stimulation, metacognitive strategy training, and generalization, originally developed for OCD, offers viable promise for addressing all the lacunae in existing interventions highlighted above.

• First, this intervention has previously been adapted to be brief (originally developed as a 12-week intervention, and later adapted to an eight-week format) and shown to be effective in the abbreviated format. 
• Further, the intervention’s focus on building metacognitive skills is a means to directly target the subjective perception of cognitive deficits noted in depression.
• The intervention also places specific emphasis on the generalization of treatment gains, with one component of the intervention exclusively dedicated to the same – current evidence does show that the intervention does positively impact everyday functioning. 
• Finally, existing literature shows that the ICCT leads to a decrease in depressive symptoms in OCD – this can be taken as the basis to hypothesize that the intervention can be adapted to an intervention exclusive to the depressive symptoms; while the core components of the interventions can be retained, the intervention itself can be abbreviated to cater to the milder cognitive deficits in depression as compared to OCD.

The current study is an attempt to adapt the ICCT as a brief intervention to address objectively assessed and subjectively perceived cognitive deficits in depression and to test the feasibility of such an intervention in the depressive population.