[jazoom]

I think you need to distinguish between depressed mood and Major Depressive Disorder, as well as other mood disorders.

You may be right if you were only talking about the former. However, MDD, BPAD etc. are serious stuff.

Source: I'm a doctor and have seen serious depression.

[acty1]

How do you, as a doctor, reconcile that there is no test/falsifiable criteria for depression?

You may be able to identify "major depression" but how many times is it just a case of "lack of meaningful purpose" and just "bad decisions" that are compensated for with drugs that may do more harm than good?

[jazoom]

Sorry for the late reply. I usually get notified of children comments.

I don't even know where to begin answering this. There are criteria for MDD. Everyone's case is different and complex. There is always a judgement call to be made. There are tools such as the K10 that go a way to making an objective assessment but I actually find the difference between MDD and "feeling down" pretty obvious. Like most of medicine, it's pattern recognition.