Research Update: Seasonal Affective Disorder Treatments

By John M Grohol PsyD
June 21, 2007

I know, I know… Here it is the first day of summer, and I’m blogging about seasonal affective disorder (also known as SAD or the “winter blues,” because it mainly strikes people during the winter months). Well, you have to write about things when research is published, and Rohan and colleagues just published a new, albeit small (N = 61), study in The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology about cognitive behavioral treatment and light therapy treatment for SAD.

Adults were assigned to either light therapy (using special light therapy bulbs for 90 minutes/day), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT, twice weekly group sessions lasting 90 minutes each), combined light therapy and CBT, or a form of a control group. The results?

CBT, LT, and CBT + LT significantly and comparably improved depression severity relative to [the control group] in intent-to-treat and completer samples. CBT + LT (73%) had a significantly higher remission rate than [the control group] (20%). Using prospectively measured summer mood status to estimate the “functional” population, CBT + LT also had a significantly larger proportion of participants with clinically significant change over treatment compared with [the control group].

This means that for most people, if you want the best results and those that continue on, you want to look into not only doing the light therapy once a day, but also find a cognitive-behavioral therapy group that meets at least once a week that focuses on SAD.

We’ll try and keep this in mind when Old Man Winter rolls around in 6 more months…

Source: Rohan KJ, Roecklein KA, Tierney Lindsey K, Johnson LG, Lippy RD, Lacy TJ, Barton FB. (2007). A randomized controlled trial of cognitive-behavioral therapy, light therapy, and their combination for seasonal affective disorder. J Consult Clin Psychol, 75(3):489-500.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues, and the intersection of technology and psychology since 1992.