Introduction: Recognizing Treatment-Resistant Depression

Because this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

It is clear that antidepressant treatments (medications, depression-targeted psychotherapies, the combination of both medication and psychotherapy,electroconvulsive therapy, or other treatments) can substantially help depressed patients. However, recent evidence indicates that the degree of symptom reduction is directly related to (1) the patient’s capacity to function on a daily basis and (2) the subsequent prognosis. Specifically, those with a response to treatment, but who have residual depressive symptoms, do not function as well, nor do they have as good a prognosis, as those whose depressive symptoms remit completely.