Lack of empathy in chronic depressive patients after emotional activation

• Applicant: Dr. Stephan Köhler
• Subject Area: Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 298523180

The current project aims at investigating differences in empathy between patients suffering from a chronic course of depression, patients with episodic depression and a healthy control group after individual emotional activation. The existing literature regarding deficits in empathy in patients with depression so far resulted in inconsistent findings. For patients with chronic depression individual emotional activation is hypothesized to evoke deficits in empathy which is depended on specific experiences formed during childhood and adolescence. In contrast to episodic depression where deficits in empathy are less frequently reported, self-reports of chronically depressed patients as well as reports by their therapists indicate difficulties in social situations due to a lack of empathy. However, this hypothesis has not been confirmed scientifically. Therefore, an individualized script based on specific early childhood traumata of the related patient will be developed to emotionally activate the patient before performing an empathy task. Additionally, neurobiological correlates of the specific emotional stress activation such as the cortisol-stress-response and the oxytocin system will be investigated while patients are conducting the task. Potential deficits in empathy in patients with chronic depression after individual emotional activation have a high relevance for the differential diagnosis of depressive disorders regarding an individualized and differential therapeutic treatment. Therefore, as a second question, the changeability of deficits in empathy following a specific psychotherapeutic treatment program for chronic depression, the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP), will be investigated.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants