Depression is caused by chemical disbalance in the brain, how come cognitive behavioral therapy can work for depression? How does this work? Does this mean our thoughts affect our chemicals in our brain?
In: Biology
The chemical imbalance theory is not well proven. But there can be observable changes in the brains of depressed people vs those who are mentally healthy. CBT is based on the principal that our feelings are a result of our thoughts. Its efficacy is generally comparable to that of antidepressants for mild – moderate depression. It works by having the patient modify thought patterns and behaviours, with the hope that blocking a vicious cycle of negative thoughts and reinforcing behaviour will help the person return to baseline emotional health.
As for your question about our thoughts affecting the chemicals in our brains, basically… Yeah they do. I’m no neuroscientist, but as a basic example, when we are anxious we release stress hormones into our bodies.
Even though the lack of seretonin theory is no longer widely accepted, it’s known that neuroplasticity is a large factor in recovery from depression, CBT can be used to basically train your brain. It’s not a cure all but it’s an evidence based approach that most of the time will be helpful to some degree.
“Every time the logical brain overrides the emotional brain, the logical brain “muscle” becomes stronger and stronger. In other words, through CBT training the brain actually reinforces the neural pathways, so it becomes easier and easier to deal with future stressful situations”
You can read about all of this on pubmed.gov and I also happen to be in CBT for depression and anxiety
Interesting reading about brain imaging: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19622682/
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