According to a study that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, depression recurs in almost half of adolescent patients.  The greatest predictors of a return to depression included:

• Being female.  According to the report even more than half of females experienced a recurrence of depression.
• Being in short-term treatment who did not respond well to treatment.
• Having a co-occurring anxiety disorder (61.9% had a recurrence)

Although most depressed teens who receive treatment do recover from their initial episode of depression (96.4 percent), the high experience of recurrence points to a need for improved therapies.  Recurrence often occurred two or more years after the initial experience.

Sometimes stress is unavoidable.  You can’t control everything in your world.  The economy, your relationships and health are all in part, out of your control.  As a result, you can find yourself in uncertain and stressful circumstances.

This stress may be the result of one event, but often it is multiple stressful events occurring at the same time that leave you feeling pressure.

DBT Distress Tolerance Skills are designed to help you survive crisis.  They are not meant as long term strategies to improve your life, but are essential skills to get your through that moment of crisis.  Strategies that can help you in times of intense stress include:

Are you one of the two thirds of Americans who, according to a 2004 APA Survey, are likely to seek help for stress?  Not only are Americans already stressed, but according to a 2008 APA study, stress is on the rise.

Have you ever felt powerless?

Powerlessness can take many forms.  It can be the inability to gain personal control or make progress towards meaningful goals.  It can be a sense of being marginalized or being excluded from participation –think of this country’s history with exclusion with all male golf clubs, all white sports teams, higher education for the wealthy and white and work opportunities for white men as a just a few examples.

Lack of power can come from inequalities in the environment, a need for personal strength, not having material resources and power imbalances in society.  The ability to right power imbalances and a sense of personal control is linked to greater health and well-being.

Memory fades with time.  Right?  It makes sense.  There are lots of memories that were crystal clear immediately after they happened, but are now foggy.  You’ve probably studied immediately before a test and done well only to find weeks or months later that you can’t recall the information that you had previously known so well.

It’s early October and already I’m starting to prepare for the holidays.  It’s time to get Halloween costumes, buy tickets for holiday shows, negotiate Thanksgiving plans and begin answering questions from the kids about how long until the big day.  If you send out a picture on your holiday card, which many of us do, it’s time to find that special one from the past year or arrange to have one taken.