Psychotherapy Improved Depression, Reduced Inflammation
December 21, 2016 · Posted in Current Treatments
A recent study shows that psychotherapy can not only improve depression symptoms, but may also reduce the inflammation that often accompanies them.
Researcher Jean Pierre Oses and colleagues randomly assigned participants with depression to receive Supportive-Expressive psychodynamic therapy, which is designed to help patients understand conflictual relationship patterns, or an alternative therapy. Among the 47 participants who received Supportive-Expressive therapy, depression improved significantly after 16 sessions, and blood levels of the inflammatory markers interleukin-6 and TNF alpha also dropped.
The research was presented at the 2016 meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry.
