THE TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION
Q: How is Depression? A: In the treatment of depression you have to take into account different strategies. The most important are represented by psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, but it would be a mistake not to take into account other types of therapy less common, but which must be taken into account in some special situations and / or when the two approaches prove ineffective election: is the case, for example, the light therapy in disorder to seasonal trend; electroconvulsive therapy (TEC) in the depressions resistant or when the use of drugs is contraindicated; transcranial magnetic stimulation (SMT) recent introduction of a technique that seems effective in depression and also in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the vagus nerve stimulation, this newly introduced active in certain forms of treatment-resistant depression.
Q: There are many psychotherapeutic techniques: they are all equally effective? A: In fact, more than 200 have been described psychotherapeutic techniques, from the classical Freudian psychoanalysis to the many techniques more or less reliable and more or less "personal" (applied, that is, by those who have proposed and a few others). Although it is difficult to evaluate in a standardized way the effectiveness of psychotherapy, two methods have been objectively proven effective in depressed patients, cognitive therapy (or cognitive-behavioral) and interpersonal therapy.
Q: What is cognitive therapy? R: Cognitive therapy is a short-term therapy (15-20 sessions) that aims to identify certain fixed patterns of reasoning and interpretation of reality, the so-called "cognitive distortions," which can be defined as erroneous ideas that affect the way which we see and evaluate ourselves. These cognitive distortions can be considered as the cause of severe and persistent negative emotions, which are the symptoms of the disorder. Once these cognitive distortions, cognitive therapy tries to fix them and integrate them with other thoughts more objective, or at least more functional well-being of the person. This is also called cognitive-behavioral therapy because this therapy also tries to change the relationship that exists between the situations that are the basis of the difficulties and emotional reactions and behavior that the person has in those circumstances, by learning how to react new and positive.