Treating Childhood Depression with Contextual Emotion Regulation Therapy

Maria Kovacs, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Kovacs has been internationally recognized for her expertise in childhood depression. Since the 1980s, her research and clinical work have focused on ways to understand, prevent, or mitigate childhood-onset depression and its sequelae later in life. She led an international team that studied the early development of the self-regulation of sadness and distress in young children, the role of emotion regulation problems as risk factors that enable the emergence of clinical depression, and ways in which family context, physiology, genetics, and personal characteristics can enable or counteract these risk factors. She developed many research tools, including the Children’s Depression Inventory and the Feelings and Me Questionnaires. Dr. Kovacs has lectured extensively on her work, both nationally and internationally, and has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals.

Preface
Introduction
1. Childhood Depression: Key Features and the Need for Treatment
2. Emotion Regulation and Mood Repair: What the Research Shows
3. Introduction to CERT for Children
4. Getting Ready to Deliver CERT
5. Assessment, Case Formulation, and Treatment Planning
6. The Initial CERT Sessions
7. Treatment of Sadness and Dysphoria
8. Treatment of Nonaffective Symptoms
9. Coping Skills Training: Its Purpose, Components, and Challenges
10. Implementing Coping Skills Training and Ending Therapy
Appendix A. Mood Repair Questionnaires and Monitoring Forms
Appendix B. Posters
Appendix C. Case Formulations and Personalized Training Plans for Four Young Patients
Appendix D. Parent Manual: Overcoming Your Child’s Depression with CERT
References
Index