PRETHERAPY TRAINING FOR GROUP COGNITIVE THERAPY WITH DEPRESSED OLDER ADULTS

This study was devised to determine the effectiveness of a pretherapy training procedure in enhancing group cognitive therapy for depressed older adults. Twenty-nine subjects were randomly assigned to a pretherapy training condition or an attention-placebo control condition. Subjects were 65 years of age or older, had a score of 14 or higher on the Beck Depression Inventory or on the Geriatric Depression Scale, and had no previous experience in psychotherapy. The pretherapy training procedure was based on Bandura's social cognitive theory and included verbal persuasion, vicarious experience, and performance accomplishment. The pretherapy training improved knowledge about psychotherapy and promoted the development of a problem-oriented focus in therapy. However it was unsuccessful in significantly reducing dropouts, increasing attendance, modifying role expectancies in the expected direction, and differentially affecting the outcome of cognitive therapy. For the experimental and control conditions taken together, 53.7 per cent of the subjects demonstrated clinically significant improvement at the end of therapy. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.