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Depression

• Overview
• Treatment

Treating depression
Fortunately depression can often be successfully treated, either with antidepressant drugs or with counselling, or with a combination of these treatments. The treatment that doctors choose depends on a number of factors, such as severity, types of symptoms, lifestyle and other medication. As well as conventional therapy, a variety of complementary therapies can also help to sufferers to manage depression.

Antidepressants
Antidepressant drugs work by affecting the levels of chemicals in the brain - these include serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine. There are many types of antidepressant - exactly how they work is not clear but they frequently lift a person’s mood and can allow them to address the problems which caused the depression in the first place. Antidepressant drugs can take several weeks to start having a noticeable effect.

Therapy and counselling
Psychological therapies and counselling can often assist a person with depression to recognize the problem and begin to address the root cause of their depression. The most common therapies used to treat depression are problem-focussed psychotherapies such as cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and the Interpersonal Psychotherapy frameworks. Counselling can also successfully help people to overcome and deal with a wide range of problems and may be carried out by a trained counsellor, a psychologist or psychotherapist.