Study On Depression Boosts Talk Therapy
Talk therapy can work as well as antidepressants in severely depressed people and should also be used as a first line of defense, University of Pennsylvania researchers concluded in a study published yesterday.
In a study of 240 patients, researchers found that cognitive therapy, a type of treatment that teaches patients to think more realistically, worked as well as a popular antidepressant for moderate to severe depression.
Patients who got four months of cognitive therapy also had about the same relapse rate a year later as people who took Paxil (paroxetine) the whole time. If people quit taking Paxil after four months, their relapse rate was twice that of therapy patients’.
As a result, the authors from Penn and Vanderbilt University contend, cognitive therapy is cheaper than antidepressants in the long run.
The research adds to a growing body of evidence that this type of therapy, developed in Philadelphia by the University of Pennsylvania’s Aaron Beck, works as well as the drugs.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 29 Sep 2005






