Personality and Mood Disorders Q 7
Using cognitive-behavioral therapy, which treatment would be appropriate for a client with depression?
A. Challenging negative thinking
B. Encouraging analysis of dreams
C. Prescribing antidepressant medications
D. Using ultraviolet light therapy
Correct Answer: A. Challenging negative thinking
Cognitive-behavioral therapy includes identifying and challenging a client’s negative cognitions. The belief is that these negative thoughts influence the feelings and behaviors of depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.
Option B: Dream analysis would be used in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Dream analysis is a therapeutic technique best known for its use in psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud viewed dreams as “the royal road” to the unconscious and developed dream analysis, or dream interpretation, as a way of tapping into this unconscious material.
Option C: Antidepressant medication could be part of a treatment program for an individual with depression; however, this would not be considered cognitive-behavioral therapy. The main aim of treatment with antidepressants is to relieve the symptoms of severe depression, such as feeling very down and exhausted, and prevent them from coming back.
Option D: Ultraviolet light therapy would be a somatic approach to treatment for the seasonal affective disorder. Although light therapy is a recognized effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder (SAD), there has been little research into the critical wavelengths of light that produce the antidepressant effect. Previous studies found conflicting results for the importance of the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum in the therapeutic effect of light therapy.