The effect of schema therapy on chronic depression in students

Aim and Due to the development of a new approach to the treatment of chronic disorders and the higher prevalence of chronic depression in relation to non-chronic depression, this research was conducted in order to investigate the effectiveness of schema therapy on chronic depression. Methods and Materials: 14 patients with chronic depression who were 21-29 years of age were selected from students of the University of Isfahan with available sampling. They were interviewed with Structured Clinical Interview (SCID-I) according to DSM-IV criteria. The Beck Depression Inventory was also used to screen the patients. They were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Only the experimental group received schema therapy, for 8 weekly sessions. The analysis of variance showed that schema therapy has significantly decreased the symptoms of depression in the experimental group. The results suggest that schema therapy has lowered the symptoms of depression, alongside decreasing early maladaptive schemas. Moreover, this treatment can be performed in psychotherapy centers.