Innovative Psychological Treatments for Depression

Summary & key facts

Researchers reviewing treatments for depression found that several types of intensive talking therapies work about as well as antidepressant drugs and often keep helping for longer. They also described new ways to match each person with the treatment that fits them best. Because there are far more people who need help than there are long, therapist-led sessions available, researchers are developing lower-intensity, cheaper treatments that could reach many more people.

Key facts:

• Several high-intensity psychosocial treatments—meaning longer or therapist-led psychological therapies—have been shown to work as well as antidepressant medication for people with depression who are not experiencing psychosis (no loss of to
• Those intensive therapies often produce benefits that last longer than the benefits from medication alone.
• Researchers have made progress on methods to help choose the best treatment for an individual patient, rather than using the same approach for everyone.
• Demand for conventional, high-intensity therapy is much greater than the supply of those services, so these approaches alone cannot help everyone who needs care.
• Because of that gap, recent research has focused on developing low-intensity treatments that are cheaper and can reach many more people while still providing benefit.

Abstract

A number of high-intensity psychosocial interventions have been shown to be as efficacious as and more enduring than medications in the treatment of nonpsychotic depression. Moreover, there have been important advances in the development of strategies to facilitate the selection of the best treatment for a given patient with a depression diagnosis. However, the demand for services is too great to be met by conventional high-intensity approaches alone. Some of the most exciting work in recent years has focused on the development of low-intensity approaches that can benefit many people and do so cost-effectively.

Topics

Digital Mental Health Interventions Mental Health Research Topics Treatment of Major Depression

Categories

Applied Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Artificial intelligence Clinical psychology Computer science Depression (economics) Economics Macroeconomics Medicine Psychiatry Psychological intervention Psychology Psychosocial Psychotherapist Selection (genetic algorithm)

Conditions & symptoms

Depression Lack of energy or motivation Sadness or low mood