Happier parents, happier teens

Teaching CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) coping and problem-solving skills to teenagers at high risk of depression can be effective, psychologists say in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, but less so if their parents are depressed. Research has shown that the risk of teenage depression is greater if their parents suffer from depression, but the latest work shows the state of parents' minds can also affect treatment of their children.

Teenage depression often goes unrecognised. Because symptoms are often dismissed as the normal problems of growing up, only about one in four depressed adolescents receive any kind of treatment. And the study suggests it is not easy to find CBT practitioners. [Psychologists at Victoria Avenue Psychology have CBT skills.]

“We know that these kids tend to interpret situations in overly negative ways,” study co-author Gregory N. Clarke, PhD, of Portland, Oregon’s Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research says. “The idea is to teach them the skills they need to keep unrealistic thinking from snowballing into full-blown depression.” The same applies, of course, to parents.