A lil' bit of nature, a lil' bit of nurture

From McMann's newsletter:

A University of Pennsylvania/Vanderbilt University/West Chester University study of 204 patients with moderate to severe major depression has found that 43 percent responded to eight weeks of cognitive therapy vs 50 percent of those on medications and 25 percent on a placebo.

The same group of researchers followed up 104 patients who had responded to treatment over 12 months. They found that those who were taken off cognitive therapy were significantly less likely to relapse than patients withdrawn from meds (30.8 percent vs 76.2 percent) and no more likely to relapse than patients who stayed on meds (30.8 percent vs 47.2 percent).

It seems to me that significant evidence is building to suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy has palpable benefits and should be a part of the mental recovery/maintenance of every psychiatric patient. If only insurance would pay for that!

I wish they would have taught me some CBT methods instead of trigonometry when I was in high school. I've never, not once, used trigonometry in my entire life, nor will I because if I would stumble upon a project requiring it, I would hire someone else to do it for me. But CBT? It would be nice to know more about the techniques and how/why they work.

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