Myrna Weissman, Ph.D., Prof. of Epidemiology and Psychiatry, Columbia Univ.
Question: How effective is family therapy for depression?
Answer: Family therapy is probably very effective for the treatment of depression in adults, but it has not been tested in controlled clinical trials.
And there are different manuals that are necessary for testing. And for family therapy there are many different versions, so it's hard to answer that question.
I'm sure that it works very well on some people, but the formal testing hasn't been done. On the other hand, it has been tested for bipolar depression. And there it is effective. There's several clinical trials now that have shown family therapy is an effective treatment. But for pure major depression it hasn't been tested.
On the other hand, in some of the manualized evidence-based treatments, families are brought into the treatment, and that's very important.
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