Cognitive therapy for bipolar illness - A pilot study of relapse prevention

Twenty-five (25) bipolar patients taking mood stabilizers and yet still rel apsing were recruited into a randomized controlled pilot cognitive therapy study. All subjects were taking mood stabilizers on recruitment . The contr ol group had treatment aes usual-that is, the usual outpatients and multidi sciplinary team input. The therapy group received between 12 and 20 session s of cognitive therapy adapted for bipolar illness in addition to treatment as usual. Therapy consisted of a relapse prevention approach and lasted 6 months. Independent assessments showed that the therapy group had significa ntly fewer bipolar episodes, higher social functioning, and better medicati on compliance from subjects' monthly self reports. There was no evidence th at improvement in the therapy group was due to more medication being prescr ibed. In fact, there were significantly less neuroleptics being prescribed in the therapy group for the 6 months after therapy. A further study with a larger sample size and longer follow-up period is warranted.