Introduction Dysthymia is a chronic form of depression, affects patients, and I am interested in conducting research to come up with an effective treatment. In the DSM-5, dysthymia is referred to as the persistent depressive disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Persistent depressive disorder (PDD) is characterized by a vast list of symptoms that may lead to a diagnosis of Mild Depressive Disorder. The co morbidity of both PDD and MDD is known as a double depression. PDD is also characterized by cognitive symptoms such as lack of sleep, appetite, low self-esteem as well as social withdrawal. If the situation persists, the patient needs to seek medical intervention. While treating PDD, many studies have realized that cognitive behavioral analysis …show more content…
Here, experimentation and observations on PDD patients will lead to knowledge gain as opposed to theoretic approach. It will be conducted without bias and withstood the scrutiny of the patients (the scientific community). This was a social science, and hence qualitative research tools will be the best to collect opinions and attitudes from the patients. Methodology A sample of 5 PDD patients will participate in the study, and they will be examined for the symptoms they have experienced, and the proposed therapies will be applied to them. Three patients will be treated using interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) and the other 2will be treated using psychodynamic and non-directive counseling therapy (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Data collection method Anonymous data about the dependent variable will be pooled for the two groups that are under two different treatments. Psychiatric co morbidity will be used to diagnose the patients because there is the possibility of co-occurrence of disorders in the patients. The research will be aiming at reducing psychiatric co morbidity while treating the PDD chronic condition (Creswell,