Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Cognitive behavior therapy can be as efficacious as antidepressant medications when adequately implemented, and it has an enduring effect that lasts beyond the end of treatment. Adding medications to cognitive behavior therapy makes it more efficacious still in terms of acute response but may interfere with its enduring effects. Some patients respond better to one modality or the other, and selection algorithms are being developed based on machine learning that can find the best treatment for a given patient (precision medicine). Treatment with uncomplicated patients who are just depressed is relatively straightforward and brief, but the approach can be expanded to deal with patients with more chronic and characterological depressions, although it can take considerably longer.