Furious Seasons

April 03, 2007

Bipolar Disorder Helped By CBT

Yet another paper from the NIMH-funded STEP-BD study came out yesterday in the Archives of General Psychiatry. In it, researchers examined patient outcomes for bipolar patients taking meds in the study who were also offered one year of intensive psychotherapy (family-focused therapy, interpersonal and social rhythm therapy and cognitive behavior therapy) or a brief period of collaborative care (3 sessions in 6 weeks).

Patients getting intensive therapy were recovered at the end of a year 64.4 percent of the time while patients getting collaborative care hit 51.5 percent. "Patients in intensive psychotherapy were 1.58 times more likely to be clinically well during any study month than those in collaborative care," states the study abstract.

Since STEP-BD has shown remission/recovery rates of about 30 percent to 35 percent for the meds-alone approach, I am guessing it might make some sense to crack open the old treatment algorithms and add something like CBT to the mix. Hell, even NAMI came out yesterday calling for more intensive psychosocial therapy based upon the study.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at April 3, 2007 12:03 AM

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Comments

A couple of the names--Michael E. Thase, MD; Gary S. Sachs, MD sounded familiar to me[still need to check them out]But in my notes I came across an O.C.D. study SSRI-Induced Activation Syndrome in Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and took a few notes from a telephone conversation I had with one of the researchers.
This study has a goal of proving that CBT works as gold standard,"the best treatment we know exists",for OCD in kids.[I'm sure CBT used for adults would be good as well]The study is using Zoloft vs.CBT "the goal is to see psychiatrist's stop medicating this way."

I believe that CBT/DBT should be first line treatment in any psychiatric disorder; and medications added on if necessary; at small doses and minimal medications.

Posted by: Stephany at April 7, 2007 04:03 AM