Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy for Late-Life Depression, DVD

With Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, PhD, ABPP

Running Time: over 100 minutes
Copyright: 2013

ORDER CODE: APA- 4310907

Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective and appropriate approach for late-life depression because it is problem focused, examining and treating present-day problems that negatively impact the client's quality of life. Established empirical studies support the use of standard CBT with older clients, and subsequent research has reinforced CBT's effectiveness when tailored to fit the needs of this prominent population.

In this video, Dr. Dolores Gallagher-Thompson works with an older woman with depression, demonstrating the technical assets of CBT while skillfully building an effective therapeutic relationship with the client.

Approach
Dolores Gallagher-Thompson's technique uses a three-phase approach to treatment.

Early-stage treatment involves socializing the client into treatment, using psychoeducation to explain the approach and how it differs from his or her initial ideas about mental health care, and goal-setting to give a concrete conceptualization of positive outcomes.

The middle stage uses cognitive and behavioral interventions and leads to skill building to address potential issues such as difficulties with loneliness, becoming more active in one's daily life, and reframing negative views about oneself, one's life up till now, and the future. Often there are significant family issues (e.g., conflict with adult children, or caregiving issues regarding a disabled spouse) that need to be addressed as well.

The late stage involves both relapse prevention and actual termination. Skills are reviewed, and the relationship discussed; this functions as a way for client and therapist to transition out of the relationship gradually. This final stage is important because this relationship is often highly significant to the client, and its loss needs to be acknowledged and processed.

About the Therapist
Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, PhD, ABPP, received her doctorate in clinical psychology in 1979 from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles after completing an APA-approved internship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.

Dr. Gallagher-Thompson's additional interest in assessment and treatment of mental health problems of later life led her to courses in this field through the Andrus Gerontology Center at USC. She did postdoctoral training with Aaron Beck at the Center for Cognitive Therapy in Philadelphia and with Peter Lewinsohn at the University of Oregon.

Dr. Gallagher-Thompson was employed as a clinical and research psychologist (specializing in geropsychology) at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System from 1981 through 2002, and she has worked as full-time faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University since that time.

Dr. Gallagher-Thompson's areas of interest are the treatment of late-life depression using cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) as well as reducing distress of dementia family caregivers through the use of CBT techniques, with a particular focus on the issues faced by ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse family caregivers.

Dr. Gallagher-Thompson has been a funded researcher for over 25 years, with grants primarily from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Aging, and the Alzheimer's Association national office, and she has worked on more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and four books (both edited and authored) that reflect these research projects and findings. Her most recent grant (from NIMH) is an exploratory study of the kinds of cognitive processing skills (as indexed by fMRI) needed by older adults in order to respond adequately to CBT for depression.

Dr. Gallagher-Thompson maintains a clinical practice in the Geropsychiatry Outpatient Clinic at Stanford University, where she "tests the limits" of what CBT can do for patients who mostly suffer from chronic, intractable depression.