Antidepressant medications are prescribed in Utah more often than any other state. According to a report by the Utah Health Department, almost 13 percent of the state’s total population and one in five women in Utah take antidepressant medications recommended by their doctors.
A study published in the journal Psychological Medicine indicates depression can be reduced in only two months through an innovative approach called concreteness training.
People who suffer from depression often have wide-ranging negative thoughts and a generally distorted perception that causes them to take things personally. For example, a person with depression who burns cookies while baking may decide she is incompetent at everything based on this one experience.
Concreteness training endeavors to modify this tendency toward negative thinking and helps keep problems in perspective. After time, a person with depression may be able to reduce anxiety and their depressed mood. A major advantage of this approach is people can learn the techniques and use them while away from their therapist.
Researchers randomly assigned 121 individuals who were currently experiencing depression to receive concreteness training in addition to their standard treatment, relaxation training with their standard treatment or only their standard treatment. All participants were assessed at two, three and six months.
Participants in the concreteness training group took part in daily exercises with a therapist, which focused on a recent event they found upsetting. Later participants continued the series of exercises alone, with assistance from CD that provided guided instructions.
Remarkably, researchers noted that concreteness training reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety from severe to mild after only two months. Participants maintained their improvement when evaluated at three and six months. Those who received only their standard treatment tended to remain severely depressed.
The relaxation group also experienced reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, but only the concreteness training group diminished the negative thoughts and perceptions associated with depression.
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