Major Depression

A new national study on "biosignatures" for depression treatment is groundbreaking in its approach and sophistication; it could usher in a new frontier of brain science.

It is important that we continue to see -- and treat -- bereavement as a universal experience that is an integral part of life.

There was never a moment when I said to myself, "Self, it's been two months since you haven't been your cheery self, and if the Zoloft ad on TV is any indication of what depression feels like, you are certainly a sad egg who can't -- or doesn't want to -- catch that damn butterfly."

As I look back, I recognize that being able to talk about my depression was almost as agonizing as going through it. Ultimately, though it was therapeutic for me.

If you're not familiar with depression, if the commercials for Cymbalta aren't enough to give you a general feel, it's like this: walking on the bottom of a murky, dark pond, able to breathe but really just barely.

Standard antidepressant treatment is not always ineffective, however the psychiatric evaluation and treatment of severe depression should extend far beyond the mere prescription of an antidepressant.

I hope those whose lives are affected by depression will read the forthcoming challenges to Fournier's findings, since the conclusions arrived at by him are debatable.

For all its prevalence and impact on our society -- and one in five Americans will have a depression in their lifetimes -- depression just doesn't get the respect it deserves.

Even on the days where my thoughts were cemented in the black stuff, in negativity and toxic emotions, I tried to pick up one foot and place it in front on the next.

There are a variety of proven and promising electrical (or magnetic) techniques that affect the brain -- from those with virtually no side effects, nor an invasive procedure, to those that are surgical in nature.

It turned out that 75 percent of the antidepressant effect was also produced by placebos - sugar pills with no active ingredients that are used to control of the effects of hope and expectation in clinical trials.

People are taken aback that I would write a book about depression and try to make it funny. Because funny and pain don't go together, right? Wrong.

The more depressed someone was, the more likely they were to benefit from taking anti-depressants. The studies showed that this was true, whether or not the patients took Paxil.