Effective, no-drug antidepressant trialled
Depression and anxiety sufferers on treatment waiting lists will trial a self-help cognitive therapy programme.
The programme has been proven overseas to decrease depression and, in some cases, even obviate the need for further therapy.
The head of Australasia?s only university-based CT training unit, Massey University?s Associate Professor Paul Merrick said a shortage of qualified cognitive therapy (CT) therapists has led to long waiting lists.
?The trial aims to teach people to be their own therapist through a self-help programme that was developed at the University of Glasgow and has proven effective in teaching people to alleviate depression and anxiety while they wait to see a qualified therapist,? Prof Merrick said.
?Its benefits can also be long term because clients develop a toolkit of techniques and coping skills that they can use to overcome their depressed mood or their anxiety. The programme is administered by a trained supervisor as a staged process through a book and CD in designated rooms in GPs or health professionals? clinics.?
Professor Merrick said CT is internationally recognised as ?best practice? psychotherapy for depression, and anxiety disorders such as panic disorder, social phobia, and obsessive compulsive disorder. He describes it as a structured, short-term, present-orientated psychotherapy that is directed towards solving current problems. When a person applies CT to modify distorted thinking and behaviour, they actually bring about chemical changes in their brain to combat mental disturbance, he said.
?In the UK there has been a reallocation of mental health funding to train more cognitive therapists. CT is the treatment of choice for major US health insurers - they increasingly will not fund other non-validated approaches such as psychoanalysis because these do not have scientific backing to prove their efficacy.
?CT has stood up to scientific scrutiny with empirical evidence showing that it is as effective as antidepressant medication for treating mild to moderate depression.
?For more severe depression, CT and the right medication is often more effective than either one alone. CT has the edge, though, in studies of relapse where it has been found that those people who have had CT with medication as opposed to those who have had drugs alone are depression-free up to four years later because they use their set of coping skills.?
He said it is a particularly effective treatment for the elderly among whom anxiety is 4 to 7 times more prevalent than in major depressive disorders.
The trial of the self help programme will begin in Auckland in November. If successful, Professor Merrick and his team hopes to train GPs and other primary health workers in its use.
Massey University, Auckland
