Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Offers New Hope for the Treatment of Depression

Jessica McCloskey

2003 

Background on Depression Treatments

Mounting evidence suggests that cognitive therapy is a more effective means of reducing incidences of relapse and recurrence in patients suffering from major depression (Teasdale, Moore, Hayhurst, Pope, Williams & Segal, 2002; Teasdale, Segal, Williams, Ridgeway, Soulsby, & Lau, 2000; Ma & Teasdale, 2004). The reduction shown in incidences of relapse is actually greater than that with patients treated with antidepressants who are then withdrawn from pharmacotherapy (Blackburn, Eunson, & Bishop, 1986). Cognitive therapy can also be a help in controlling depression when used as a follow up to antidepressant medications, or when used in conjunction with pharmacotherapy where patients are only responding partially to the antidepressant medication.

Clearly, this could have a great impact on the massive social cost that is associated with major depression. After reviewing several studies of the lifetime course of depression, it has been noted that "it has been established that unipolar major depressive disorder is a chronic, lifelong illness, the risk for repeated episodes exceeds 80%, patients will experience an average of 4 lifetime major depressive episodes of 20 weeks duration each" (Judd, 1997, p. 990). Certainly, then, it can be said that patients who are at risk for relapse or recurrence of a depressive episode pose a great challenge to the management of major depressive disorder. Up to now, maintenance pharmacotherapy has been the best supported and most widely used method of controlling depression. However, there is a great cost to the patient and to the healthcare system to maintain a patient at the even the lowest dosage of medication that will achieve remission.