Posted by floatingbridge on November 22, 2009, at 16:26:37
In reply to Re: No benefit to adding psychotherapy to medicati, posted by SLS on November 22, 2009, at 16:05:50
> I don't know if I made this clear earlier, but psychotherapy has never improved my depression in the slightest.
However, I try not to extrapolate my experience upon those suffering from all types of depression. Perhaps bipolar disorder, which is what I have, is less responsive to psychotherapy than unipolar disorder (major depressive disorder). I really don't know. Still, there are some pretty compelling reasons to taking advantage of psychotherapeutic counseling. If nothing else, it can help change the content of thought and thus reduce what I like to call "depressive pressure". To reduce depressive pressure can only help and not hurt. It can improve one's chances of responding to drug treatment and reduce the risk of relapse or medication breakthrough after a response is obtained.
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> - ScottScott, this is interesting. And it did go over my head that therapy has not helped your depression. "Depressive pressure"--is that your own coinage? (I like it.) Hmmm. I have in mind my recent MBCT class which seeks to help one become aware of thoughts and sensations (and also examine & endure those that are categorized as 'painful'), and Southernsky's recent posts about the benefits of therapy for dealing with maladaptive behavior and TRD (now that's paraphrasing an eloquent set of posts!).
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poster:floatingbridge
thread:926342
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091117/msgs/926583.html