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The cognitive behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy (CBASP) is a talking therapy, a synthesis model of interpersonal and cognitive and behavioral therapies developed by James P. McCullough Jr. of Virginia Commonwealth University specifically for the treatment of all varieties of DSM-IV chronic depression. McCullough writes that chronic depression (i.e., depressive disorder in adults that lasts continuously for two or more years, or one year continuously in adolescents), particularly the type beginning during adolescence (early-onset), is essentially a refractory mood disorder arising from traumatic experiences or interpersonal psychological insults delivered by the patient's significant others (nuclear or extended family).