Talk Therapy Succeeds in Reducing Suicide Risk – New York Times (NY Times, free reg. req’d)
After a year of debate over whether antidepressant drugs increase the risk of suicide, a new study finds that a standard brand of talk therapy may offer the best chance to save those at the highest risk of taking their own lives.
The therapy cut almost by half the risk of suicide attempts in extremely suicidal patients, many of whom were already taking drugs for depression, the researchers found.
The study, published in the Aug. 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, is the largest and most rigorous test of a psychotherapy technique in people whose attempts to end their lives have been serious enough to land them in hospitals, experts said.
Studies of depression treatments typically exclude such patients, in part because they are 30 to 40 times as likely to kill themselves as people who have not made serious suicide attempts.
“That you could cut by half the number of attempts in this population in just 8 to 10 sessions of therapy is something to write home about,” said Steven D. Hollon, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who was not a part of the study.
Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.Like this author?
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 10 Aug 2005
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Grohol, J. (2005). Talk Therapy Succeeds in Reducing Suicide Risk – New York Times. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 14, 2012, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2005/08/10/talk-therapy-succeeds-in-reducing-suicide-risk-new-york-times/
