Treatments For Depression

Would suggest if a behaviour can be learnt in can therefore be unlearned. This form of treatment has to reinforce that patients will be rewarded for non-depressive behaviours.

Lewinsohn; Behavioural Treatment of Depression.

Aim; Evaluate the efficacy of 'coping with depression'.

Method; longitudinal study assessed with interviews. (p's - 60 adolescents with depression and some of their parents). Indepentdent measures design. Procedure; put in 1/3 groups, some received course, some received course & parents were enrolled, some on 'waiting list'. Interviews done before/after treatment. For parents who were involved taught how to reinforce expected positive changes. Adolscents had 14, 2 hour sessions over 7 weeks.

Results; Group 1 - treatment - only 57% diagnosed with depression after. Group 2 - treatment and parents - only 52% diagnosed with depresison after. Group 3 - little change. Conclusion; With positive reinforcement and treatment depression can be dealt with.

Would suggest that through taking medication the levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin can be controlled efficiently.

Karp and Frank; Biological Treatment of Depression.

Aim; To compare drug treatment to non-drug treatment.

Method; Review article of research into the effectiveness of single treatments and combined treatments.

Procedure; Depression was analysed. The participants were tested before and after the treatment in some cases. Patients were given the drugs, or the drugs and therapy sessions as combined treatment. Then re-tested for levels of depression.

Results; adding therapy to drug treatments did not increase the effectiveness of the drugs.

Conclusion; Drug therapy is effective and successful in treating patients with depression.

Would suggest that through changing the faulty thinking patterns of the patient from irrational thoughts to rational thoughts the patient will think for positively and have effective treatment for their depression.

Beck et al; Cognitive Treatments of Depression.

Aim; Compare effectiveness of cognitive therapy and drug therapy.

Method; Controlled experiment with p's allocated to one of two conditions. Indepentdent measures design (p's - 44 with severe depression).

Procedure; 1 hour cognitive therapy seesions twice a week or 12 weeks OR 100 capsules of drugs for a week. Therapy sessions were also observed for reliability purposes.

Results; significant decrease in depression. Those from the cognitive therapy group showed best improvements (78.9%). Conclusion; cognitive therapy leads to better treatment for depression shown by fewer symptoms.