| Clinical psychologist here. The doctors I work with prescribe cognitive behavioral therapy as the first hand treatment for depression and antidepressant when therapy is ineffective (which isn't all that common). One of the reasons that antidepressant are so widespread is that doctors are usually in charge of treatment and seldom perform therapy but are very used to prescribing medication. Also the fact that millions of people are depressed makes it hard to give everyone access to therapy. In my opinion it is much harder to treat a patient on antidepressant since they respond worse to treatment then a depressed patient who is not on medication. Depression is a devastating disease but it is astounding how effective therapy can be for a lot of patients. I regularly meet patients who are very depressed when we first meet who manage to overcome their depression in a couple of weeks. Physical activity is also very good at treating depression. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17437199.2015.102... If everyone would exercise the demand for therapists would be much lower. One mistake that many depressed patients make is holding a strong view that they are a person who suffers from depression. This keeps the patient from realising that depression is a condition caused by their interaction with the environment and that it isn't personal. I think one problem with the article is that it seems that the person still views herself in this way instead of fully realising whatever it is that is needed for keeping him/her from becoming depressed again. |