Neural Correlates of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy for Depression

In this study, we will treat patients with brief psychodynamic psychotherapy. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a type of treatment that may be as helpful as medications in treating depression. It focuses on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as well as both current and past relationships. Psychotherapy explores better ways of coping with feelings, expressing needs, and interacting with others in order to cope with depression and other life problems. Subjects will go to 16 weekly, 45-minute, individual sessions of psychodynamic psychotherapy over the course of the study. At five times throughout the study, subjects will come in for extra visits, which last approximately 1.5 hours and which include: speaking with a study doctor about depressive symptoms, filling out extra questionnaires, and performing positron emission tomography (PET)and a Quantitative Electroencephalogram (QEEG). The QEEG is a machine that measures the electrical activity of the brain. This task will take approximately 15 minutes.