Page "Cognitive behavioral therapy" Paragraph 23

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown as an effective treatment for clinical depression.

The American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines ( April 2000 ) indicated that, among psychotherapeutic approaches, cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy had the best-documented efficacy for treatment of major depressive disorder.

One etiological theory of depression is Aaron T. Beck's cognitive theory of depression.

His theory states that depressed people think the way they do because their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations.

According to this theory, depressed people acquire a negative schema of the world in childhood and adolescence as an effect of stressful life events, and the negative schema is activated later in life when the person encounters similar situations.