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pachyderm said:
> often clinical depression is a permanent problem that has to be dealt with throughout life.

Labelling it as "permanent" is quite a daunting prognosis, I think. Wouldn't you say it depends on the treatment? Something accepted (by "authorities") at one point may not be so accepted at another. The sufferer of the depression may be affected by the prognosis given by "authority."

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Which is why I said 'often,' rather than 'always.' There are various levels of depression and subtypes-- grief related, other situational types, major, dysthymic, chronic, melancholic, etc. There is a difference between curable and treatable and the truth is, a lot of times depression is treatable, but not curable. I just wanted to clarify that I was not trying to give depression a negative prognosis-- there is a lot of positivity and hope in the belief of treatment without the belief of a cure. I don't believe my depression will be cured or will go away permanently-- but I do believe that if find the correct meds (hopefully the one I am on-- the 15th one, is it) and keep working hard with T, I will be able to treat and manage my depression well. I agree with you that it does dependon the treatment. Also, the type of depression matters. Bipolar depression responds best to meds and therapy together. Situational depression responds best to therapy without medication. And I have seen quite a few of my patients at the hospital respond beautifully to ECT. But I will still maintain that psychotherapy should be used in conjunction with ANYTHING.