Integrating Psychodrama and Cognitive Therapy-An Exploratory Study
Keywords:
behavioral therapyAbstract
The authors evaluated the effects of participating in a group course, using integrated psychodramatic and cognitive-behavioral techniques, on participants' (N = 40) changes in the number of core beliefs, number of automatic thoughts, moods, and alleviation of depression. The results of the study showed that the average Beck Depression Inventory (BDl-11) scores from the first 3 and last 3 weeks of the course did not differ significantly. That lack of difference may be attributed to the use of students as participants in the study; their BDI-11 scores, already low in the first 3 weeks of the course, had little, if any, room for improvement. The average mood ratings, before and after writing balanced thoughts, differed significantly (p < .05) for each time period of analysis (i.e., separately for the first and last 3 weeks). Thus, there were immediate positive effects from writing balanced thoughts but no significant differences
between the average mood ratings across the 2 time periods, whether the ratings were obtained before or following the writing of the balanced thoughts. The lack of generalization during the initial practice (first 3 weeks) of writing balanced thoughts across new situations was evident later in the course. The BDI-11 scores significantly correlated with the number of automatic thoughts, core beliefs, and different types of core beliefs. That finding suggests Beck's assumption that negative thought content characterizes depression (see D. A. Clark, A. T. Beck, & B. A. Alford, 1999).
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