[growlycat]

I recently was back east to attend a family event and I managed to get in a face to face session with my long term psychodynamic T. He lent me the book "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression" by Andrew Solomon.

I am struck by how little has changed in 20 plus years in treating depression and anxiety…both in terms of medication AND therapy. The only difference I see is the rise of DBT and EMDR. I'm alarmed that greater strides haven't been made.

Meds have done nothing for me. Psychodynamic therapy seems most effective for me but it is as much art as science. CBT has limited helpfulness to me so far.

I always worry that my elderly psychodynamic T will drop dead any minute. Not sure what I am going to do then.

Do your T's discuss the breakthroughs in treatments available? Anyone willing to share?

Funny, my T & I just had a similar discussion as a result of a TV program which showed brain scans of people as they viewed different pictures and videos, reasoned a political issue. My T said amazing work is being done that shows the long term physical (including brain function) biological changes caused by abuse. Vice versa too. We opined on what this may mean for talk therapy. He said some formally 'psychiatric problems' are now being moved to the biological side of the menu & the roll of medcations reevaluated.

[Creative ToFu]

My formal T talks about the advancement and change of EMDR in the past 10 years and the recent new studies and newer approachs to using it. We have talked about the recent developments in diagnosing PTSD through testing and what that testing means in treating it. I know DBT is popluar, but I don't respond well to the lab rat testing it makes me feel and it feels old fashioned to me, trying to teach me things I already know. I find CBT to be annoying to me because it is hard to use this method on someone who KNOWS it already.

EMDR can treat depression, and can especially, treat anxiety.

Originally Posted by growlycat

I recently was back east to attend a family event and I managed to get in a face to face session with my long term psychodynamic T. He lent me the book "The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression" by Andrew Solomon.

I am struck by how little has changed in 20 plus years in treating depression and anxiety…both in terms of medication AND therapy. The only difference I see is the rise of DBT and EMDR. I'm alarmed that greater strides haven't been made.

Meds have done nothing for me. Psychodynamic therapy seems most effective for me but it is as much art as science. CBT has limited helpfulness to me so far.

I always worry that my elderly psychodynamic T will drop dead any minute. Not sure what I am going to do then.

Do your T's discuss the breakthroughs in treatments available? Anyone willing to share?

[unaluna]

The past 20 years have been great - it was the 20 years before them that were a death walk.

[stopdog]

I think a lot of advances are being made in clients taking back power and not just letting a therapist be a god or letting them set the game up without question and negotiation (online therapy, skype and so on).
I am personally looking forward to robots.