Anti depressants and cognitive therapy?

i take citalopram which work quite well, but of course they don't take the underlying problem away.I am also trying acupuncture, but am interested if anyone has had cognitive therapy and found it worked.

I've tried cognitive therapy and I am currently seeing a therapist who uses cognitive behavioural techniques. It has to do with trying to change your thoughts about yourself. However there is a lot of homework involved. You basically need to write down your thoughts and then see how other more positive thoughts could be used instead. It's actually very difficult. But I believe that it does work.

You could also check out the "overcoming" series of books - written by several experts in the field. They have "Overcoming low self-esteem", "Overcoming social phobia and shyness", "Overcoming childhood trauma"... and so on, depending on what your problems are. Those books are really easy to read and provide a step-by-step program based on cognitive behavioural techniques.

good luck. :)

Strictly from a medical standpoint, all guidelines for treating depression recommend therapy of some kind, but in actual practice it is always shown to be less effective than drug therapy. I think that may have to do with timing of the trials, because it would be logical for therapy to take longer to help than medications. My personal thought is, try it. It may work very well for you.

I'm currently having CBT therapy at my local library, and from April I'll be having CBT and Physcotherapy. Its early days, but I can see a definate improvement since I started.

There is a free online CBT course at: http://www.livinglifetothefull.com/elear... that might be of interest to you.

The waiting lists for CBT are usually very long, so the sooner you as your doctor for a referal, the better.

i had it for a few weeks after years of depression, and its the only thing that ever worked for me.

its a very sensible type of therapy - it doesnt ask you to go back into your childhood and try and work out why you feel crap, which is completely unhelpful in my opinion, it just changes the way you think about things and helps you cope with situations you find difficult. its not a miracle cure, more like sensible advice