Cognitive Therapy And Manic Depression

Cognitive therapy is considered to be a fairly new method of treatment in the mental health field. However, if you look back in history, cognitive therapy was present during Buddha's time. Lord Buddha laid great emphasis on his followers watching and controlling their thoughts and this is the basic principle of cognitive therapy.

Of late, cognitive therapy is being used increasingly to treat manic depression. It has been seen that this therapy is extremely useful in when a person has mood swings towards mania or depression. The idea behind cognitive therapy is to catch these mood swings early before the person decides to take matters in his own hands. In addition, cognitive therapy helps to keep the person manageable.

Although even medication and drugs are required to treat manic depression, cognitive therapy helps in managing mood swings and improves the quality of a person's thinking. It is the mood swings and problems with thinking that affect a person's behavior. And there is enough evidence to show that cognitive therapy helps to reduce episodes of mania and depression in patients.

Cognitive therapy helps to reduce relapses of manic depression in a person. The therapy teaches the person coping strategies and behavioral responses. It has been seen that with cognitive therapy, a person can identify prodromes, which are nothing but early signs and symptoms that come before an episode. It is interesting to note that patients find it easier to identify prodromes for mania than depression. The reason could be that prodromes for mania are usually quite severe while those of depression come on slowly.

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Cognitive Therapy Definition

Cognitive therapy is a psychotherapeutic method of treatment that helps a person overcome problems associated with emotions, behavior and cognition through a methodical and goal oriented route. Many of the techniques used in cognitive therapy share the same foundation as behavioral learning theory and cognitive psychology. More..