The Most Effective Technique To Treat Depression
Do you know what the most effective therapeutic technique is for people with depression? Some people with depression find relief thanks to their therapist or prescription medication, but there is research that argues that asking questions may be the key.
This study, conducted at Ohio State University, is the first to show that depressed patients experience substantial improvements in their symptoms when their therapist uses a technique called “Socratic conversation.” The research was published in the journal Behavior Research and Therapy.
The Socratic Conversation and Cognitive Therapy
The Socratic Conversation is a series of guided questions through which the therapist asks patients to consider new perspectives on themselves and their place in the world.
“People with depression can get stuck in negative mindsets,” said Justin Braun, co-author of the study and PhD student in psychology at Ohio State University. “The Socratic conversation helps patients explore the validity of their negative thoughts and gain a broader, more realistic perspective.”
The cognitive-therapeutic approach to treating depression states that people suffer from depression because of their interpretation of events and not because of the events themselves. During therapy, the patient is expected to be flexible in ascribing meaning to and finding more functional and adaptive interpretations for these interpretations. Therapy therefore not only reduces depression, but also protects against future depressive episodes.
“Many other studies have focused on how the patient-therapist relationship can promote a positive therapeutic response,” said study co-author Daniel Strunk, an associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University. “We found that the Socratic conversation was more predictive of improving said symptoms than the therapeutic relationship, the variable examined in previous studies.”
Why the Socratic conversation is effective
For the study, 55 patients took a 16-week course on cognitive therapy for depression at Ohio State University. The patients completed a questionnaire at the beginning of each session. The purpose of this questionnaire was to measure depression symptoms.
Researchers analyzed video recordings of each of the patients’ first three sessions and estimated how frequently the therapist used Socratic conversation techniques. The researchers found that the sessions in which the therapists used more Socratic conversation produced a stronger improvement in the symptoms of depression in patients.
“Patients learn the process of asking questions and being skeptical about their own negative thoughts,” Braun said. “When they do this, they often notice a substantial reduction in their depression symptoms.”
For example, a patient may tell his therapist that he is a complete failure and that life has ended because his marriage has ended in divorce. The Socratic conversation allows a therapist to test the patient’s views about the situation.
The researchers formulated the following sample questions:
- Do you think everyone who has gone through a divorce is a failure?
- Can you think of someone who wouldn’t like this?
- How do you think divorce translates into failure as a person?
- What evidence is there that certain aspects of your relationship were successful, so that it can no longer be defined as a “total failure”?
“The goal is to teach patients how to apply the same kind of questions to themselves,” Strunk said. “We believe one of the reasons cognitive therapy has such long-lasting positive effects is because patients learn to challenge their negative thoughts and continue to do so even after treatment has stopped. ”
Strunk also stated that patients “learn that they may be lacking in information that conflicts with their negative thoughts.”
Researchers are continuing their research with new patients for the purpose of treating clinical depression. One of the goals of the new research is to characterize patients, so that the Socratic conversation can be used more effectively.
