Depression

Abstract

to define disorders for which pharmacotherapy is strongly indicated, the clinician must differentiate normal from abnormal mood / individuals frequently experience sadness and depression as a normal response to stress, disappointment, and crisis / others exhibit depressive symptoms as part of their character style or in response to unconscious themes / some individuals even appear to have mood changes related to natural rhythms (like the seasons) / many episodes of lowered mood require little or no intervention / some reactive, recurrent, or chronic depressions mentioned above require support, psychotherapy, or even pharmacotherapy / some individuals with abnormal mood develop more severe, autonomous depressive symptoms . . . that respond to medication depression is a set of symptoms with complex biopsychosocial determinants / for the most severe depressions, biological factors rather than environmental or psychological factors seem to determine the course of the illness / these syndromes require pharmacotherapy and may be only slightly responsive to specific psychotherapeutic interventions / for depressions of moderate severity, various types of short-term psychotherapy can play an important role in treatment the 1980s saw the introduction of a number of new antidepressant drugs / research also has told us more about the appropriate use of old drugs, such as tricyclics and MAOIs [monoamine oxidase inhibitors] / one of the most important findings in recent years is that many depressed patients go untreated or undertreated with antidepressant medications health care professionals anticipate the advent of biological tests that will allow us to select treatments with greater specificity psychological models / biological models / integrative model / diagnostic considerations [clinical presentations, classifications, biological diagnosis] / general therapeutic measures [milieu and crisis techniques, psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy] / pharmacotherapy [cyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, evaluation of the depressed patient, drug therapy for the depressed patient] (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)