Cognitive Therapy For Depressed Adolescents - Resolving The Creativity And Madness Controversy

Based upon and adapted from Aaron T. Beck's cognitive therapy for depressed adults, this long-awaited volume provides general strategies and specific tactics for the use of cognitive therapy with depressed adolescents. Featuring strategies derived from years of clinical work and repeated testing, Cognitive Therapy for Depressed Adolescents provides patient-therapist narratives that convey a clinical feel for how this therapy works, as well as actual case vignettes illustrating effective techniques for diagnosis and treatment. Throughout, the book stresses that the approach be both interactive and educational.

The manual opens with a theoretical overview of cognitive therapy applications. Chapters present ten key principles of cognitive therapy with adolescents and techniques for assessing and diagnosing depression. Part II focuses on special issues that arise in the treatment of adolescents--developmental considerations, ways to create and sustain a therapeutic relationship, and how to involve the entire family in the adolescent's treatment.

Part III describes the macrostages and microtechniques in cognitive therapy with chapters presenting an in-depth analysis of goal setting, intervention, and termination. Part IV discusses comorbidity and strategies for working with substance-abusing teenagers, survivors of sexual victimization, and suicidal adolescents. Although the emphasis of this manual is on outpatient treatment, brief periods of hospitalization are often part of the management of depressed adolescents, so one chapter in Part V is devoted to the use of cognitive techniques in the inpatient setting, and another describes general management issues and psychopharmacological treatment. Finally, the chapter considers therapeutic failures and obstacles one encounters when working with this population.

Providing guidelines and principles of cognitive therapy techniques for the treatment of depressed adolescents, this volume will be of value to psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. These adapted techniques will also add to the repertoire of cognitive therapists who normally work with depressed adults but also encounter adolescents in their practice. Useful as a teaching text in courses that discuss new applications for cognitive therapy techniques, this book is also ideal supplemental reading in courses on psychology and psychotherapy.

T.C.R. Wilkes, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Psychiatric Residency Program at the University of Calgary, Alberta, and Medical Director of the Adolescent Program at Foothills Hospital in Calgary. He graduated in medicine at the University of Birmingham, England, and pursued training in pediatrics in Canada and the U.K. before completing his training in Edinburgh, Scotland and Dallas, Texas. He specializes in the manifestation of affective disorders in children and adolescents and is a member of the Canadian Child Academy.

A. John Rush, MD, ABPN, is Professor Emeritus at Duke–National University of Singapore and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University. A former Associate Editor of both the American Journal of Psychiatryand Biological Psychiatry, he has received Lifetime Research Awards from the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Psychiatrists, the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Dr. Rush’s research has focused on diagnosing, treating, and clinically managing depressive and bipolar disorders. He helped to develop cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder and adolescent depression. His work has led to the development, evaluation, and implementation of measurement-based care; clinical practice guidelines; and the recognition and management of difficult-to-treat depressions

Ellen Frank, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Director of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic's Depression and Manic-Depression Prevention Programs. Under grants from the national Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Frank is currently conducting a series of assessment and long-term maintenance treatment studies with individuals suffering from recurrent depression and another in the area of manic-depressive illness.

Gayle Belsher, PhD, is a staff psychologist on the Cognitive Therapy Team, Outpatient Mental Health Service of the Calgary Regional Health Authority consortium of hospitals. She is also an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary. Her work on this book was completed during a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.