There are more misconceptions about depression amongst patients, professionals and the general public than most other psychiatric diagnoses. Depression, like most other major psychiatric illness is caused by a mix of genetic tendencies and environment. This is why some people can have many, serious negative life events and recover normally, and why others have few if any and suffer recurrant bouts of major depression. Depression is not sadness, and is not grief, although chronic sadness and grief can contribute to developing depression. When people say " I am depressed today" they are probably meaning sad, down, upset. Once someone has an episode of major depression they are much more likely to have it again especially if the depressive episode was not put into remission by proper treatment. For a single episode of depression the APA calls for antidepressant treatment that results in near symptom free functioning for a minimum of a year before considering tapering the medication. When someone has a second episode, 2 years of symptom free medication treatment are called for, and a 3rd episode usually means someone will need to be on medication for life. The #1 killer of women is cardio-vascular disease, and the #1 predictor of death following an initial heartattack is "Depression".

Dr. S.