Can Less Yield More? Behavioral Activation for Adolescent Depression

The report by Ritschel et al. (2016) demonstrates that Behavioral Activation (BA) has significant promise as an effective intervention for adolescent major depression. At a minimum, confirmation of this finding in controlled trials would increase the available treatments for depression in young people. BA may also be more attractive to adolescents, especially younger adolescents, than models of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) that place greater emphasis on cognitive change. A more general attraction of BA is its relative simplicity, in comparison with the CBT models used in recent major trials, all of which involved multiple skill-training modules. The theoretical basis of BA lends itself to studies of mechanisms of therapeutic change, and may also prove to be useful within a Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework.

Duke Scholars

Author John F. Curry Psychiatry, Child & Family Mental Health & Community Psychia ...