CBT vs psycho-dynamic therapy for depression
leshooo
topicprop-JC.docxAli AlShammary
9/24/19
Topic proposal
There are many types of different therapies, each has its strengths and weaknesses. Each focus on a deferent aspect of life and how to approach and address those matters. For this paper, I picked psychoanalytic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy; the past versus the here and now. In the beginning, the background of each therapy will be discussed, followed by the theoretical approach, after that, the paper discusses depression and how the selected therapies approach, deal, and treat that problem. Finally, we summon up pervious research regarding the matter. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Sounds like a great organization for your paper!
Background
Psychoanalytic therapy is the type of therapy associated with Sigmund Freud. According to Freud, the human personality is formed out of a conflict among three fundamental structures of the mind, and they are the id, ego, and superego. This type of therapy dates the to late 1800s. It believes that humans are driven by their unconscious motivations. And that there are underlying psychological forces that shape an individual’s personality. In this type of therapy, we focus on the past, childhood is such a strong factor in the personality outcome, and it is viewed as the most important stage in development; because of high plasticity in that stage. Another big part of psychoanalysis is the unconscious mind and trying to understand what it might be telling us. One way to investigate the unconscious mind is by dreams, according to the textbook, “dreams are the way the unconscious mind dealing with problems the conscious mind cannot.” Comment by Jessamy Comer: What is the source for all of the information in this paragraph? Your textbook? If so, make sure you cite the textbook so it’s clear where all of this info is coming from Comment by Jessamy Comer: More like the early 1900’s Comment by Jessamy Comer: For the paper, you’ll want to fully develop these ideas in greater detail Comment by Jessamy Comer: Make sure you cite quotes using proper APA style (including page numbers!)
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is an integration between two types of therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy. This type of therapy is associated with Albert Ellies, Donald Meichenbaum, and Edna Foa. This type of therapy dates to the 1950s, it started when Ellies first integrated behavioral and cognitive theory creating rational emotive therapy (RET), which was expanded to rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He believed that people are not mentally ill as much as they became disturbed because of their irrational thoughts that are based on faulty assumptions. CBT focuses on the here and now, which is done by identifying the harmful thoughts that can lead to dysfunctional emotions and behaviors and to replace these thoughts with more healthy thoughts that are more adaptive. This type of therapy is used frequently in the clinical environment, it has been proven to be effective due to its high success rate. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Ellis Comment by Jessamy Comer: Again, you’ll want to make sure you cite the textbook for all of the information in this paragraph. And you’ll also need to fully elaborate on their theory and techniques
Theoretical approach
In the psychoanalytic approach counselors usually try to understand what made this person becomes the way they are, they dive into patient childhood, dreams, parents’ relationships to understand more about the patient. In doing so, the counselor is then able to guide the patient to recognize, acknowledge, express and overcome negative feelings. The counselor also tries to help with repressive emotions to improve adaption, this happens after a patient start understanding and coping their emotions. Not less important is tracking drams to decipher the unconscious mind. Comment by Jessamy Comer: What is your source for this information? Did you find research looking at this?
In CBT, there are many different models such as cognitive restructuring techniques, graded exposure assignments, activity scheduling, successive approximation. Each of these techniques is designed to change the patient’s process of thought into a healthier one. CBT helps people recognize and identify thinking patterns that lead to negative mood, helping people systematically overcoming their fears, increase behaviors patients should do more, and get rid of obsessive thinking patterns. Counselor mostly focuses on the thought process and how it might have an unpleasant behavioral and emotional outcome. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Again, what is your source of information?
The problem to be addressed in this paper is depression, we will compare how psychoanalysis therapy and CBT approaches depression, what are the treatments, and how effective they are. According to the DSM-5, depression is the “presence of sad, empty, or irritable mood, accompanied by somatic and cognitive changes that significantly affect the individual’s capacity to function.” So if that’s the case, is it wiser to advance toward depression from a psychoanalytical approach and focus on the past and where might that depression originated from, or would CBT be more helpful in this case as it addresses the negative thinking process replacing it with more adaptive thoughts and make the client aware of their thinking process? Comment by Jessamy Comer: Make sure you cite using APA style citations Comment by Jessamy Comer: Excellent empirical question!!
Regarding depression, research has proven that both psychodynamic therapy and CBT can be very helpful. In one study by Leichsenring, they compared short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy to cognitive-behavioral therapy in treating depression. According to the study, there wasn’t any significant difference that was detected between STPP and CBT in treating depression. With that being said, there seems to be more research material supporting CBT in treating depression compared to psychoanalytic therapy. (Leichsenring, 2019) Comment by Jessamy Comer: Generally speaking, we avoid saying “proven” for psych research- there’s always an exception to the rule. So we say things like, “research has demonstrated” or “research has shown” Comment by Jessamy Comer: There’s multiple authors, so you need to say Leichsenring et al. (2019) Comment by Jessamy Comer: Is this the end of the topic proposal? I’d like to see more information about other studies you’ve found comparing the two therapies.
Shafran, R., A. W., Nagra, S., Pissaridou, E., & Coughtrey, A. (2018). Cognitive behavior treatment of co-occurring depression and generalized anxiety in routine clinical practice. PLoS One, 13 Comment by Jessamy Comer: This is not in APA style- you should go back to the APA style manual and fix all of your references so they are in APA style. (If you don’t know how to do this, let me know and I’d be happy to help you)
This paper aims to treat co-occurring depression and anxiety using CBT by focusing the treatment on depression alone rather than a wider treatment for anxiety and depression. The results show that when focusing only on only depression there will be improved out comes for the patient compared to a border treatment. This source is useful for its demonstration that CBT is highly affective with both depression and anxiety.
Wright, J. H. (2003). Cognitive behavior therapy for chronic depression: Combined treatment may succeed when pharmacologic monotherapy fails. Psychiatric Annals, 33(12), 777-784. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Again, not quite in APA style- make sure you fix it
This paper aims at treating chronic depression with cognitive behavioral therapy with medication as part of a comprehensive approach. At the end of this paper, one patient who met the criteria for the current episode of major depression when the study started was no longer in the criteria. This paper is useful because it can be used as evidence on effective CBT is in helping people with depression. Comment by Jessamy Comer: But were they all treated with medication AND CBT? In that case, how do we know CBT was the cause of the improvement?
Leichsenring, F., Liliengren, P., Lindqvist, K., Mechler, J., Falkenstöm, F., Philips, B., et al. (2019). Inadequate reporting of a randomized trial comparing cognitive-behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy for depression. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 207(6), 421-422. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Fix APA style
The import key point from this journal is the chapter where it compares psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy in treating depression, which is what I’m trying to do in my paper as well. This paper is useful because the result of their comparison will shed some light on which type of therapy is better with treating depression. Comment by Jessamy Comer: So is this an actual study comparing them? Or is it just a literature review of other papers that compare the two? I’m a bit confused
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: Author. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Fix APA style
DSM-5 serves as a reference for mental illness, in its chapter about the depressive disorder it gives a detailed definition, diagnostic criteria, features, different types and much more regarding depression. This source is useful because it gives support to the paper, it also gives a better understanding of depression which is the main problem of this paper.
Parson, R., Zhang, N. (2014). Counseling theory. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Fix APA style
This book contains a chapter about psychodynamic theory and another chapter about cognitive behavioral therapy, the chapters discuss the historical background, development, views, characteristics, and structure of each theory. It is useful because it gives a background on each approach.
Driessen, E, Van, HL, Don, FJ, et al. (2013) The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy and psychodynamic therapy in the outpatient treatment of major depression: a randomized clinical trial. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170: 1041–50. Comment by Jessamy Comer: Fix APA style
This paper compares psychodynamic therapy to cognitive behavioral therapy in treating major depressive episodes. The results show no significant differences between the two treatments. This source is useful because it compares both types of therapy we are trying to compare in this paper.
Hi Ali,
Excellent work with this topic proposal! I think you’ve got a solid topic for your paper, and the organization of the piece sounds solid. I think it makes sense to talk about each therapy in terms of its theory and techniques first and then talk about how they can be applied to the case of depression.
You’ve got some good research studies to work with so far. I would’ve liked to have seen a bit more description of them and how you will use them within your topic proposal, but overall they look fine. One thing I noticed is that you seem to have more research studies looking at the effectiveness of CBT than psychodynamic therapy. It might be helpful to find a research study that looks solely at psychodynamic therapy treating depression to talk about how effective it is in general too.
Finally, make sure you work on your APA style. The in-text citations were either absent or not in proper APA format. The reference section citations were not in proper APA format either. So make sure you go back through and fix these using the APA manual (or you can just go online and look up APA style). Let me know if you have any questions about how to cite using APA style.
Overall, nice work! I’m looking forward to reading your paper! See below for a breakdown of your grade.
Best,
Dr. Comer
PSYC 422
Topic Proposal and Annotated Reference Section Rubric
Topic Proposal
Identifies two different forms of therapy to evaluate _____10____/10
Briefly describes theoretical background of each therapy _____10____/10
Briefly describes therapeutic methods of each therapy _____10____/10
Identifies problem to be addressed and compared in paper _____10____/10
Briefly describes and explains some research already found on topic _____7____/10
Annotated Reference Section
Identifies at least 6-8 sources for paper (only 1 is textbook) ____10_____/10
Reference section is in APA style _____7____/10
Annotations summarize key points from the source for the paper _____10____/10
Annotations explain how source will be useful for the paper _____10____/10
Writing Mechanics
Proper spelling/grammar _____5_____/5
Clarity of writing and ideas _____5_____/5
