June 19, 2003 – In Canada, up to 15% of children under the age of 14 have already had depression, and there is every reason to believe that the problem is underdiagnosed. Six-year-olds are said to have even serious suicidal thoughts. Rather than stuffing them with antidepressants, several researchers offer to simply teach them optimism.
One of those is Professor John Abela, who teaches in the Department of Psychology at McGill University. It recruited 140 children with one parent having a history of depression and compared them to 40 children with no such history. Its results show that the children in the first group were four times more likely to suffer from depression than the others. In addition, 84% of children who have already had depression will have it a second later.
Mr. Abela also found that psychological and environmental factors, such as the tendency to make pessimistic remarks about oneself, the world and the future, lack of self-esteem, rigid personality traits and extremes, self-criticism and heavy reliance on parents, can all lead to depressive disorders in children.
These children could therefore be relieved if they learned to be more positive about themselves and if they learned to replace their negative thoughts with positive ones. This is what Dr Katharina Manassis, who is affiliated with the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, is trying to teach them.
Dr Manassis set up a pilot project in an elementary school in Ontario. This 12-week project teaches children the basics of cognitive behavior therapy, a technique that has been shown to be effective in the treatment and prevention of depression.
The same technique is already taught in all schools in Australia. In Canada, the preliminary results are encouraging, with several children (and their parents …) claiming to have benefited from it.
The results of Prof. Abela’s study were not published, but were presented at a scientific conference.
Jean-Benoit Legault – PasseportSanté.net
According to CTV.ca, L’actualité Médicale and Voir.ca; May 8, June 16 and 18, 2003.
