Spectrum of Disorder-Specific Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment Approaches in Depressive Disorders

In the discussion on modern psychotherapy there is an increasing demand for disorder-specific treatment. In behavior therapy there are many treatments for any disease. The diagnosis does not help in selecting the proper treatment. Instead, a 'patient-specific' treatment has to be developed for every single case, with reference to evidence-based theory and treatment models of cognitive behavior therapy. The following gives an overview of important different concepts of disorder and treatment models for depression, i.e. reinforcer models, coping models, cognitive models, emotion models and integrative behavioral models. It is explained how to apply these different approaches to a patient model based on behavioral analysis.