Depression: Therapy by Phone
May 17th 2010 -
Depression is a common disease. The suffering of people affected is large. But who does not live in large cities, often has to wait very long for a therapy room, or take a long way in purchasing. For such patients psychotherapy might be helpful over the phone. This resulted in a small pilot study, which is appear in the journal “Behavior Therapy”.
Diane Spangler of the Brigham Young University has had to treat 30 patients with depression by telephone. The meetings that followed the method of cognitive behavioral therapy, lasted 21-52 minutes. The result: Two of three patients felt well with this offer, a third preferred therapy face to face.
In patients that the therapy well accepted by phone, the depression improved significantly. 42 percent of them were even six months after the intervention of symptoms. In a normal treatment in the practice of therapists are expected to cure rate of 50 percent.
The bottom line: For each treatment is not suitable on the phone. Who with the intervention by phone but has no problems to assist the sessions on the couch at home, almost as good as the therapist. Benefits include time savings, more flexibility and greater choice in therapists search.
Tags: Behavior Therapy, Depression, therapy by phone, therapy face to face
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