By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter Mon Jul 2, 11:47 PM ET

MONDAY, July 2 (HealthDay News) -- Suicide attempts dropped among people with depression soon after they started treatment, either with antidepressant drugs or psychotherapy, a study of more than 109,000 patients shows.

The study results come after a controversial 2004 recommendation on antidepressant labeling from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That move slapped a strong "black box" warning on the labeling of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include Celexa, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft.

The warning outlined the potential for an increase in suicidal thoughts among teenagers and young adults prescribed the medications. The warning also urged closer clinical monitoring of these patients.

However, "the FDA warning was based on placebo-controlled trials," noted lead researcher Dr. Greg Simon, a psychiatrist and researcher at Group Health, a Seattle-based nonprofit health care system. "They did not look at suicide attempts, because they were too rare. In the whole group of studies the FDA looked at, there were only two suicide attempts," Simon said.

The current trial, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, does focus on suicide attempts. It finds that pharmaceutical and psychotherapy treatments aimed at fighting depression reduce those attempts.

For the full article, refer to the below url
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20070703/hl_hsn/suicideattemptsfallafterdepressiontreatmentbegins;_ylt=AmT0qJrbjcVC0r4RnZHaVkjVJRIF

It is a puzzlement to me that in Singapore, a number of those whom I know sees their psychologists only once or twice a month or so on average. A much bigger gap of time frame than what I feel and think is suitable for treatment or as it is in overseas.

"The further/longer the time duration from the previous therapy session, the less effective it's going to be."

In my view, the further the duration, the more likely new issues in life will occur that the person will bring up during the session that both the individual and the therapist have to address. And more likely to make the person feel they have to (spend more time) recap a lot more on the previous session and what happened in between the sessions. Perhaps one can call it losing the momentum if you will with the huge time frame gap in between the sessions.

Of course, one might then say, it isn't cheap to keep seeing them you know.

Got this from a book call "Apart or A Part : The Social Worker's Multiple Journeys"

The below is beautifully written by Chuah-Toh Yin May, Principal Social Worker of Students Care Services

In slowing down I caught up with my client
In not knowing, I came to know her
In silence, I heard her cries
In distancing, I connected
In brokenness, I saw healing
In stillness, I saw life

I would think if I change the word Therapy to Listening, it would fit pretty well too.

By Anne Harding Tue Sep 4, 2:54 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Family therapy is more effective than traditional solo psychotherapy in helping teens with bulimia to abstain from binging and purging, a new study shows.

The study is the first in the US to evaluate any treatment for bulimia nervosa in adolescents, Dr. Daniel le Grange of the University of Chicago, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. He and his colleagues tested a family-based treatment modeled on an effective therapeutic strategy for anorexia nervosa in adolescents known as the Maudsley approach.

In the US, le Grange noted, psychotherapy in which a person meets with a therapist to understand the emotional issues involved in their eating disorder is currently the standard treatment for bulimia nervosa. To investigate whether getting families involved might make treatment more effective, they randomly assigned 80 adolescent patients (12 to 18 years old) with bulimia to supportive psychotherapy or the family-based approach.

The family-based therapy consists of three phases: in the first, lasting two to three months, patients and their parents meet weekly with a therapist, with the goal of helping parents stop their children from engaging in unhealthy weight-control behaviors.

Once the patient is able to abstain from bulimic behavior, the family moves on to the second phase, in which therapy sessions are every other week and the goal is to "transition control over eating issues back to the adolescent," le Grange and his colleagues explain in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In the third phase, families meet with the therapist once a month and attempt to address how the eating disorder affects developmental processes in adolescence.

Patients in the supportive therapy arm of the study followed the same basic frequency schedule of therapy meetings, with the goal of exploring emotional problems that may have triggered the disorder.

At the end of treatment, 39 percent of the 41 patients who participated in family-based therapy were completely abstaining from bulimic behaviors, compared to 18 percent of the 39 patients who underwent psychotherapy.

Six months later, 29 percent of patients in the family therapy group were still abstinent, compared to 10 percent of those in the psychotherapy group.

"There's room for improvement," said le Grange, who pointed out that he and his colleagues used the rigorous standard of complete abstinence to gauge treatment effectiveness, not whether a patient had merely shown reductions in binging and purging behavior.

While family-based treatment for bulimia nervosa is not currently widely available in the US, interested parents can seek out practitioners trained in the Maudsley approach for anorexia nervosa, who will be able to adapt the strategy to bulimic patients with the help of a treatment manual, added le Grange. Therapists with experience in the Maudsley approach are listed at www.maudsleyparents.org.

"I'm excited about what we've done," he concluded, "but I temper my excitement by the fact that this is the first study."

SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, September 2007

Taken from
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070904/hl_nm/teens_bulimia_dc