Therapy Model

In the beginning of treatment the focus is on dealing with the situational and interpersonal avoidance strategies of chronic depressives. CBASP acts on the assumption that it is useful to teach patients to see their life problems from a person x environment perspective. That means that the patients have to learn that they are always interacting with their environment. As long as the avoidance of interpersonal situations is not overcome, there will be no change in the chronically depressed patient’s mood. Only when avoidance is overcome it can result in changes in behavior, in personal empowerment, and in an improvement in dysfunctional emotional regulation.

CBASP’s most important therapeutic techniques include specific situational analyses and the training of interpersonal skills. Additional interpersonal strategies serve to create a cooperative therapeutic relationship. When used appropriately, all three components can bring about progress in cognitive emotional development. This takes the chronically depressed patient to an improved level of functioning and enables them to lead their lives with better self-monitoring capabilities.

By means of situational analysis, patients learn the causal relationship between their own behavior- and cognitive patterns and the consequences that they produce.  By applying situation analyses during therapy, automatic cognitive- and affective patterns are recognized and their actual consequences are analyzed. In addition,  desired alternatives are developed and finally, socially competent interactive behavior is trained and tested.

Through specific interpersonal strategies, the role of the therapist is adapted  to the needs of the chronically depressed patient. A part of that involves helping the patient to distinguish between old familiar dysfunctional relationship patterns and the behavior of the therapist and of others. In this way, negative interaction patterns can be changed. Therapists are committed to a disciplined, responsible manner of personal involvement in the therapist-patient relationship, in order to face problematic interpersonal “hot spots” during therapy, to facilitate personal change of the patient, and to serve as a role model.

Further Information
Schramm, et al. “A Specific Therapy for Chronic Depression.” Nervenarzt, 2006. (German language article)

Schoepf D., et al. “Specific Therapy for Chronic Depression with the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy.” Nervenheilkunde, 2007.  (German language article)

For more detailed information on CBASP please also visit James McCullough`s Homepage at www.cbasp.org.