The drug companies are at it again, they and the medication enthusiasts. As far as they’re concerned, all therapy is no more helpful than having a chat to an old friend. Doesn’t benefit you one bit, except for the old saw; ‘a problem shared is a problem halved.’
It can’t be denied that there’s been a great increase in psychopharmacology over the past ten years and of course the marketing efforts have more than kept pace accordingly. So it’s now becoming ‘de rigeur’ to look upon any form of therapy as costly, ineffective and a waste of time. The result of all this is that patients who formally would have tried therapy enthusiastically, are now turning away from it in preference to medications.
But the leading therapists haven’t been idle, either, especially those specializing in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or C.B.T. Growing evidence from brain imaging research suggests strongly that C.B.T. shows changes in the brain which are very similar to those produced by medications, (‘when they even work,’ one researcher couldn’t help slip in!).
But what is cognitive behavioural therapy? It emphasizes the role our thoughts play in how we feel. The interesting part is that even if we continue to suffer the same, stressful thoughts without any external change on their part, the idea is to change the way we think about them. By exercising this ability, a highly negative condition such as depression, can be prevented from taking over a patient. Read the rest of this entry »
