Therapist Interventions in the Interpersonal and Cognitive Therapy Sessions of the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program

This report provides a descriptive evaluation of the therapist interventions implemented in the cognitive and interpersonal sessions of the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. 135,352 therapist statements drawn from 548 treatment sessions were coded for response mode category, time frame, and person. Therapists in both treatments were quite active, using predominantly clarifications, questions, and facilitative comments focused on the present time frame. The treatments also revealed important differences: cognitive therapists used more questions, restatements, and information/directional statements. Variance component analyses further revealed that differences between patients and between therapists explained a significant amount of variance in therapist response modes, indicating that manual-guided treatments can still reveal flexibility to address unique patient needs.