Do you know what the most effective therapeutic technique is for people with depression?Some people with this problem may expect answers from their therapists.
Research indicates that questions may be the key.
- The study.
- Conducted by researchers at Ohio State University in the United States.
- Is the first to show that depressed patients experience substantial improvements in their depressive symptoms when their therapists use a technique called socratic questioning.
- The study was published in the journal Behavior Research and Therapy.
Socratic questioning is a therapeutic tool
cognitive restructuring of cognitive therapy
Socratic questioning consists of a series of guided questions in which the therapist asks the patient to consider new perspectives on himself and his place in the world.
“People with depression can get caught up in their negative thoughts,” said Justin Braun, co-author of the study and PhD student in psychology at Ohio State University.
“Socratic questioning helps patients examine the validity of their negative thoughts and gain a more realistic and broad perspective.
Cognitive therapy understands that people suffer from depression because of their interpretation of events, not themselves. During therapy, the patient seeks to make it more flexible to assign meanings and find more functional and adaptive interpretations for himself.
Therefore, therapy not only reduces depression, but protects against future depressive episodes.
“Many other researches have focused on how the relationship between the patient and the therapist can promote a positive therapeutic response,” said study co-author Daniel Strunk, associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University.
“We found that socratic questioning was predictive of improvements in previous symptoms and beyond the therapeutic relationship, the most examined variable in previous studies. “
The study included 55 patients who took a 16-week cognitive therapy course for depression at Ohio State University. Patients completed a questionnaire at the beginning of each session. The purpose of this questionnaire was to measure your depressive symptoms.
Researchers analyzed video recordings of each patient’s first three sessions and estimated how often the therapist used socratic interrogation techniques.
Researchers noted that in sessions where therapists used more socratic questions, there was a sharper improvement in patients’ depressive symptoms.
“Patients learn this process of asking questions and being skeptical of their own negative thoughts,” Braun revealed. “When they do this, they tend to see a substantial reduction in their depressive symptoms. “
For example, a patient can tell their therapist that it is a total failure and that it is not worth living life because their marriage ended in divorce. A therapist can ask a series of socratic questions to challenge beliefs about your situation.
For example, researchers suggest the following questions
“The goal is to help patients learn to use the same kind of questions with themselves,” Strunk said.
“We believe that one of the reasons cognitive therapy has lasting positive effects is that patients learn to question their negative thoughts and continue to do so even after treatment is over. “
Strunk also noted that patients “learn that they can ignore information that is contrary to their negative thoughts. “
Researchers continue to investigate with new patients in the treatment of clinical depression. One of the objectives of the new studies is to characterize patients to make the use of socratic questioning more effective.