Today, we see some misconceptions about the treatment of depression not only in street talks, but also in environments supposedly specialized in the treatment of these disorders, ideas that unfortunately correspond in part to the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and are spreading by the knowledge of the population that gives them truthfulness, without questioning the words of certain reference figures in this field.
In this sense, these misconceptions and arguments, devoid of scientific basis, are not trivial, help patients themselves not to seek psychological treatment or encourage doctors and psychiatrists not to offer adequate treatment, or even to refer patients to qualified psychologists for treatment.
Let’s look at the top 3 misconceptions about treating depression
For example, the DMedicine portal, associated with the newspaper El Mundo, states that “There are no studies demonstrating that psychological techniques can eradicate depression [?]. For depression, the only treatment found effective was pharmacological treatment. We know how, by doing some research, we have managed to find several serious and rigorous studies that contradict the results of such claims.
In addition, we are no longer talking about individual studies, but meta-analysis (studies that collect data from various individual studies and analyze with statistical techniques what would be the result of a joint contrast). This type of study is very important to draw General Conclusions: they not only use a complete sample, but also include different subsamples.
Examples of this type of meta-analysis that demonstrate the effectiveness of psychotherapy in the cure of depression would be those of Cuijpers, Berking et al. (2013) or the most recent by Johnsen and Freiburg (2015). In the latter, researchers analyzed 43 different studies and found that after cognitive behavioral therapy, 57% of patients could be considered “cured”.
On the other hand, it is true that cognitive behavioral therapy is the most common and most studied, so it usually represents a significant weight in meta-analysis; however, there are other therapies that have proven their effectiveness in treating depression and that we can consider as well-established treatments, according to the criteria of the American Psychological Association (APA).
On the other hand, one idea that would be followed and that is also false and widespread would be that psychotherapy would be effective only to treat mild or moderate depression, but not to treat severe depression, against this idea, for example, Driessen, Cuijpers, Hollon and Dekler (2010), based on the results of one hundred and thirty-two studies, failed to establish that the variable severity of depression was related to differences between people who had received treatment and those that had belonged to the control condition (the interaction of the disease’s variable severity with the benefit of psychotherapy was not significantly different from 0).
In light of the results, it can be said that this idea is one of the misconceptions about the treatment of depression, as well as the idea that psychotherapy would be useless in cases of severe depression. Another topic related to the latter idea is that, in the case of the most serious patients, drug treatment can be seen as a valuable aid for the patient to initiate a more balanced therapy.
For example, in the meta-analysis cited earlier by Cuijpers, Berking et al. (2013), there are at least 20 studies that compare the effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for depression with cognitive behavioral therapy and it has been found that the size of the difference effect was practically nil (g -0. 03) . Furthermore, this lack of difference was independent of the evaluation procedure used and the pharmacological treatment applied (the interaction between the factors was not significantly different from zero).
Clarification should be made in this regard. Studies comparing the results of interpersonal therapy with drug treatment show a slight trend in favor of certain pharmacological treatments; In any case, the latter data should be analyzed with caution, as the number of studies is much lower compared to those comparing the cognitive effect. behavioral therapy with drug treatment.
Therefore, the idea that psychotherapy is less effective than drug treatment would be another misconception about the treatment of depression.
First, let’s set that up. Long? Is it short?It will depend on where we estimate the line between the two extremes, we currently consider the time of the therapies (the ones we list as effective) to be 16 to 20 sessions, spread over 3 or 4 months. Certainly, there are always special cases where short psychotherapy becomes very brief or prolongs over time.
Under no circumstances would the therapies we have identified as effective in any case establish an intervention plan of more than 6 months, if the results are not achieved for this period would it be necessary to reassess the situation, not all psychotherapies are for all patients in all conditions. However, as with surgical operations, for example, not all psychologists have the same skills to treat all disorders in the same way.
Studies indicate, for example, that the average successful cognitive behavioral therapy for depression is 15 sessions (Cuijpers, Berking et al. ). In this prediction, it would be necessary to count relapses aside, since they can occur for several reasons and are not always related to therapeutic intervention, in this heterogeneous range of reasons that can lead to relapse are found: a traumatic event, an inadequate family dynamic or a configuration of habits that lead to isolation or social marginalization.
Misconceptions about the treatment of depression go beyond what is stated here, in this sense psychologists have been able to develop effective research and therapies, but they have not been able to expose these research and therapies to society, there is still a long way to go. Let’s go.
Cuijpers, P, Berking, M. et al. (2013) A meta-analysis of cognitive behavioral therapy of depression in adults, alone and compared to other treatments. Candian Journal of Psychiatry.
Cuijpers, P. , Hollon, SD et col. (2013) Does cognitive behavioral therapy have a lasting effect that is greater than the continuation of drug therapy for patients?A meta-analysis. UMB open, 3.
Sanz, J. et García-Vera, M. P. (2017) False ideas about depression and treatment (II) Psychologist functions. Vol. 38.