Children as young as 3 can be clinically depressed, and often that depression recurs as kids get older and go to school. It also can reappear during adolescence and throughout life.
But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that an interactive therapy involving parents and their depressed children can reduce rates of depression and lower the severity of children’s symptoms.
The findings are published June 20 in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Luby’s team adapted a treatment known as Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) that was developed in the 1970s to correct disruptive behavior in preschoolers. The adaptation involved adding a series of sessions focused on emotions.
Among the ways of doing so is an activity in which researchers place a package for a child in a room and then make the child wait to open it. The parent wears an earpiece and is coached by a therapist observing through a one-way mirror. The idea is to give children tools to keep their emotions under control, and to train parents to help their children reinforce those tools.
They also are conducting brain-imaging as part of the study. In previous research, Luby and her colleagues found that brain changes linked to depression can alter the brain’s structure and function, making the children potentially vulnerable to future problems. Now they want to learn whether this interactive therapy might prevent or reverse those previously identified brain changes.
Interestingly, the researchers also found that symptoms of clinical depression improved in the parents who worked with their children during the study.
Luby added that the therapy program doesn’t require a psychiatrist and can be delivered by master’s degree-level clinicians.
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