Adolescent Depression: The Application of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Adolescent Depression

Guangzhou Listen and Speak Bar Psychological Counseling Introduction:

Now depression occurs in more and more adolescents, college students who jump off the building due to depression have many cases every year, and some high school students, college graduates are depressed every day, do not want to work and students, depressed mood, loss of interest, feel bored in life, and mild to moderate depression.

At present, the treatment of depression is mainly carried out by combining drugs and psychological counseling to improve the emotional condition of patients and reduce the recurrence of depression. Cognitive therapy is one of the most common psychotherapeutic techniques in the treatment of depression. Today Guangzhou Listen to The Psychology explains to you: the basic principles of cognitive behavioral therapy and its application to adolescent depression.

1. The current lack of drug treatment alone

Xiao Xin, 17 years old, a year ago with a male classmate close relationship, parents and teachers know after the forced to stop, parents even made trouble to the man's home, they feel very humiliated, faceless, depressed, no interest in learning, always no spirit, often feel pessimistic and disappointed, unable to go to school.

Later, the parents really had no way, and did not dare to believe that it was depression, and finally went to the hospital to see, opened Zuo Luofu and Dai Lixin, after taking the medicine that day immediately felt much better, so they have been eating for more than 2 months, Dai Lixin also stopped, sleep also recovered, feel better for a long time. However, there is still no sense of pleasure, the mood is very general, and after 4 months, the self-feeling state is getting worse and worse, and there are depression recurrences.

2. According to the characteristics of adolescent depression, the use of relevant psychological counseling techniques is the first choice

Adolescents with a high likelihood of spontaneous remission of depression tend to be self-limiting, but are at risk of recurrence. In recent years, studies have shown that the recurrence rate of adolescent depression within 1 year after antidepressant treatment can be as high as 40% to 50%, and recurrent episodes can affect the cognitive development of adolescents and increase the risk of suicide.

Adolescents are in the rapid development of psychological and physical adolescence, emotional instability, prone to depression and other negative emotions. Individual depression is associated with childhood experiences, psychosocial factors from home and school, mental illness, substance abuse, and many other factors.

Foreign studies have found that childhood experience is an important factor in depression, such as childhood without parents personally raising; Violence by family members; The child experiences abuse; In cases such as unpleasant childhood life, adolescents scored high on depression.

In view of the above characteristics of adolescent depression, it is proposed to use relevant psychological counseling techniques, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal relationship therapy, family therapy, etc., which can be used as the first choice for adolescent depression, especially acute onset and mild to moderate depression.

3. The basic principles of cognitive behavioral therapy

For psychotherapy for adolescent depression, the most effective form of treatment is individual psychotherapy rather than group psychotherapy. The adolescent period is an important stage in the formation of its cognitive mode and values, so the pertinence of cognitive behavioral therapy is more prominent.

Cognitive behavioral therapy was gradually created by A.T. Beck in the clinical practice of studying the treatment of depression, Beck believes that cognition is the mediator of emotion and behavior, emotional problems and behavioral problems are related to distorted cognition, and abnormal cognition produces abnormal emotions and behaviors. According to Beck, people with depression often have some form of cognitive bias that is closely related to depressive episodes and hinders patient recovery.

Cognitive behavioral therapy states that the "dysfunctional hypothesis" formed by people's early experience determines people's evaluation of things and becomes the norm that governs people's behavior, without being perceived by people (that is, existing in the subconscious). Once these schemas are activated by some kind of harsh life practice, a large number of "negative automatic thoughts" arise in the brain (i.e., rise to the realm of consciousness), leading to emotional depression, anxiety, and behavioral disorders. In this way, negative cognition and negative emotions reinforce each other, forming a vicious circle that makes the problem continue to increase.

Common negative cognitions are: arbitrary inference, selective abstraction, overgeneralization, amplification and reduction, personal centering, and dichotomous thinking.

Therefore, the "dysfunctional cognition" of depression patients is formed in childhood life experience, usually not clearly expressed, not perceived by consciousness, with considerable stability, it is both a characteristic symptom of depression, but also a part of personality, to a certain extent dominating people's emotions and behaviors.

The role of cognitive therapy is to change the patient's cognitive bias, the main method is that the psychological counselor (psychologist) and the patient cooperate with each other, help the patient identify their negative thinking and logical errors, let the patient test their cognitive assumptions with practice, change the cognition with change behavior, replace irrational beliefs with rational beliefs, rebuild a healthy cognitive structure, so that patients can treat themselves objectively and predict the future.

4. Evaluation of clinical efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy

Gao Yong et al. have shown that the principles of some basic cognitive behavioral therapy have been used and drug therapy has achieved relatively satisfactory results. They recommend that cognitive psychotherapy be used in conjunction with the treatment of depression, which can be very effective in preventing recurrence and lasting effect.

It has also been reported that the efficacy of cognitive therapy may be better at preventing recurrence, with a recurrence rate of 20% to 40%, compared with a recurrence rate of 60% to 75% with drug therapy.

In addition, after clinical practice, psychological counseling experts have found that cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy has a better effect on mild to moderate depression. Can be used to prevent acute onset of depression in children. When carrying out psychotherapy, psychologists should flexibly cross-select psychotherapeutic methods and forms according to the actual clinical situation and conditions, and if necessary, they can combine antidepressants to maximize clinical efficacy.