The Effectiveness of Art Therapy's Technique Making Stories in Pictures in Complex Treatment of Patients with Neurotic Depression

Despite significant progress in the development of pharmacotherapy of depressive disorders, difficulty in achieving rapid reduction in depressive symptoms and stable remission in patients with neurotic depression necessitated the search for new approaches to the treatment of this pathology. One way to improve the efficiency of complex therapy of depressive disorder is the use of art therapy techniques. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the method Making stories in pictures (MSP) in the treatment of patients with neurotic depression. In this study were used clinical-psychopathological and psychodiagnostic methods. MSP technique was carried out in individual and group forms of psychotherapy, by sessions of 60 minutes one day per week for one month. The study involved 60 patients of both sexes aged 18 - 45 years, divided into main group and comparison group. The technique MSP in treatment with antidepressants SSRIs was effective by accelerating regression of depressive symptoms.70 % of patients had faith in themselves, 75 % - showed improvement in mood state between sessions, 77 % - had increasing of self-estimation, 80 % of patients improved their adaptive abilities. This technique also allows patients to learn new coping strategies, helping to solve their problems on a structured, logical framework, which makes prevention of recurrent relapses in the future.