Psychoterapy in the long-term depression

Abstract

A PubMed based literature review was conducted. Some studies show the efficacy and effectiveness of some particular psychotherapeutic interventions for the longterm depression treatment: behavioural therapy, cognitive-behaviour therapy and interpersonal therapy. However, clinical trials in this field generally present important limitations: the selected diagnosis criteria, lack of specification regarding inclusion criteria for involved subjects severity of the disorder, absence of post-treatment followup and in a lot of cases, lack of control group to compare the obtained results. We discuss the existing studies so far and, particularly, the controversies in the combined use of psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological treatments for the prevention of depression recurrences.