Anxiety and depression are common, and recovery is difficult when they occur together. The symptoms of depression make it difficult for people to have the energy to become more active, while the symptoms of anxiety encourage people to avoid doing what they should do, or make them worry excessively. Anxiety and depression affect confidence and self esteem.

Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

Recovery is difficult when you have both depression and anxiety. But, treatment can work. The best treatments involve learning about your symptoms, learning how to control those symptoms (using cognitive and behavioural techniques or CBT), and gradually resuming your usual activities. Learning to beat your depression anxiety takes courage, commitment, and practice.

You can talk to your General Practitioner about getting a referral to a Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or another mental health professional to learn to manage your anxiety. Or, you can try our new Wellbeing Program.

What is the Wellbeing Program?

The Wellbeing Program is our new Internet-based program designed to teach people with depression and anxiety how to manage their symptoms. We developed the Wellbeing Program because many people with depression and anxiety never seek treatment, but many have access to the Internet. Also, because depression and anxiety commonly occur at the same time we thought it was important to provide information about managing each condition in the same program. Technically, this type of program is called a Transdiagnostic Program, because it targets more than one type of condition at a time.

The new Wellbeing Program aims to provide good education and guidance on simple but effective treatment techniques for the symptoms of depression and anxiety. We hope it will help people to gain better control over their symptoms, improve their confidence, and get back to living a full and satisfying life.

The First Trial of the Wellbeing Program

We are currently building this program, and will begin accepting applications for this program in mid March 2010. The Wellbeing Program involves completing 8 online lessons and homework assignments over 10 weeks. The aim of this research trial is to compare a clinician-guided version of the Wellbeing Program (in which people receive weekly telephone calls or emails from a clinical psychologist) with a group who will wait 11 weeks to begin treatment (a "waitlist-control" group). This trial is important because it will tell us how much benefit people can get from the first edition of the Wellbeing Program.

The Wellbeing Program is for people with either depression, social phobia, panic disorder, or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or a combination of these disorders.

People eligible for this Program are:

• Australian residents, and,
• 18 years or older, and,
• Have at least one of the conditions (depression, social phobia, panic disorder, or GAD)

People ineligible for this Program are:

• Are severely depressed or are suicidal (we believe that these people need face-to-face treatment as soon as possible), or,
• Have a history of bipolar disoder or schizophrenia, or,
• Are taking a benzodiazepine medication (e.g., Xanax, Valium, Temazepam, Diazepam, Kalma), or
• Have been taking another medication (e.g., an anti-depressant) for less than one month

Applications will open in mid March, and applying involves two steps. The first step is an online application, and involves completing several questionnaires to help us understand your symptoms, and this takes approximately 20 minutes. The second step involves a telephone interview with a member of our research team, which takes approximately 20 minutes. Successful applicants will be randomly allocated to one of two groups:

• Group 1: Access to the Wellbeing Program with weekly contact from a clinical psychologist. This Group will also begin the 10 week Program in late March
• Group 2: This Group begins the Wellbeing Program in mid May after Group 1 has finished the Wellbeing Program. They will receive the same level of support as participants in Group 1, but we hope to have improved the program before they begin.
  

Before applying please read all the information on the "Important Information" page, under the "About our Treatment" tab (above). Please note that places for this trial are limited and we have a very large waiting list, so please apply as soon as possible.

Page Last Updated: 16 February 2010, by Dr Nickolai Titov