the effect of schema therapy on chronic depression in students

aim and background: due to the development of a new approach to the treatment of chronic disorders and the higher prevalence of chronic depression in relation to non-chronic depression, this research was conducted in order to investigate the effectiveness of schema therapy on chronic depression. methods and materials: 14 patients with chronic depression who were 21-29 years of age were selected from students of the university of isfahan with available sampling. they were interviewed with structured clinical interview (scid-i) according to dsm-iv criteria. the beck depression inventory was also used to screen the patients. they were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. only the experimental group received schema therapy, for 8 weekly sessions. findings: the analysis of variance showed that schema therapy has significantly decreased the symptoms of depression in the experimental group. conclusions: the results suggest that schema therapy has lowered the symptoms of depression, alongside decreasing early maladaptive schemas. moreover, this treatment can be performed in psychotherapy centers.