CHANGES IN COGNITIVE ORGANIZATION FOR NEGATIVE SELF-REFERENT MATERIALFOLLOWING COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY FOR DEPRESSION - A PRIMED STROOPSTUDY

Cognitive organisation of self-relevant material was examined in 55 de pressed patients before and after cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) fo r depression. The paradigm used was a version of the Stroop task modif ied to permit the to-be-colour-named self-relevant target adjectives t o be primed by emotional phrases which varied according to their degre e of self-description. Analyses indicated that those patients who were less depressed at posttreatment showed less colour-naming interferenc e for self-descriptive negative targets primed by self-descriptive neg ative phrases (when compared with nonself-descriptive primes). In cont rast, patients who were still highly depressed after treatment showed higher levels of negative interference, as has been found in nontreate d depressed patients. These findings support the hypothesis that negat ive information about the self is highly interconnected in the cogniti ve system of depressed patients and suggests possible changes to the o rganisation or accessibility of cognitive structures; changes which ma y result from successful treatment for depression.