Improving Depression Outcome by Enhancing Memory for Cognitive Therapy

"Cognitive therapy (CT) for depression. There is evidence that CT for major depressive disorder (MDD) can be as effective as antidepressant medication for the initial treatment of moderate to severe MDD. Moreover, following the withdrawal of treatment, patients treated with CT are significantly less likely to relapse than patients treated with antidepressant medication and CT is at least as effective as antidepressant medication in preventing subsequent relapse. Over 14 sessions CT aims to alter the symptomatic expression of depression and reduce risk for subsequent episodes by correcting the negative beliefs and maladaptive information processing presumed to underlie the disorder and alter the systematic tendency to misperceive reality in a pessimistic fashion.~Cognitive support. An intervention to improve memory for the contents of therapy. Cognitive support involves a series of specific procedures that support the encoding and retrieval stages of an episodic memory."