New Hope For Those Who Suffer Winter Blues

We are more than halfway to winter. The gray, cloudy, damp days of winter, which for many, is a sad time of year. SAD, as in Seasonal Affective Disorder - a form of clinical depression that recurs in a seasonal pattern.

Now a new study out of the University of Vermont suggests that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) may be another way to treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) over the long term.

Until now, light therapy and antidepressant medications have been the most effective treatments for SAD.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy used for a number of mental disorders working to solve current problems and change unhelpful thinking and behavior.

Researchers treated two groups of SAD sufferers. One group received light therapy and the other got a course of CBT and after one year, the two groups did not differ significantly in depression rates but after two years only 27% of the CBT group had recurrence in their depression compared to the 46% of the light therapy group. (Huffington Post)