Since the classic descriptions, depression has been conceived as an episodic and recurrent illness. Depressive episodes with clear onset and offset and sharp contrast with one’s usual mood and behaviors are perhaps the most conspicuous feature of severe mood disorders. However, systematic studies of unselected samples have been telling a different story: a large proportion of individuals suffer...

'Cosmetic psychopharmacology' is a term coined by Peter Kramer in his 1993 best-seller, Listening to Prozac. It has come to refer to the use of psychoactive substances to effect changes in function for conditions that are either normal or subclinical variants. In this paper, I ask: What distinguishes an existential ailment from clinical depression, or either of those from normal depressed mood,...

INTRODUCTION To determine the incidence of treatment-induced sexual dysfunction in depressed outpatients treated with five different antidepressants. METHODS 100 depressed patients (ICD-10 criteria for depressive episode, recurrent depressive disorder, and dysthymia) with an active sex life were assessed by the MADS, the CGI, and the Sexual Function Questionnaire at baseline and at 1, 2, and ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Post-stroke depression (PSD) is one of the most frequent complications of stroke, with a prevalence ranging 20-60%. As PSD seems to be related to stroke severity, we hypothesized that the prevalence of PSD would be lower in patients with minor stroke. METHODS We investigated the prevalence and predictors of PSD over a 30-month follow-up period in a cohort of patients wi...

Conventional treatments for mood disorders primarily focus on reducing negative affect, but little on enhancing positive affect. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a traditional meditation practice directly oriented toward enhancing unconditional and positive emotional states of kindness towards oneself and others. We report here two independent and uncontrolled studies carried out at differen...

A method for studying cognitive conflicts using the repertory grid technique is presented. By means of this technique, implicative dilemmas can be identified, cognitive structures in which a personal construct for which change is wished for implies undesirable change on another construct. We assessed the presence of dilemmas and the severity of symptoms in 46 participants who met criteria for d...

BACKGROUND Dysthymia and minor depression are common problems in primary care, but it is not known how patient health beliefs shape response to antidepressant treatment of these less severe forms of depression. METHODS Three hundred thirty-three primary care patients with dysthymia or minor depression received at least 4 weeks of paroxetine or placebo in a multicenter, randomized controlled 1...

A patient with chronic depression responded to treatment for her major depressive episodes, but was left with a dysthymia which was eventually relieved by anticonvulsants. Sodium valproate may be of use in a range of affective disorders.

As part of a prospective study of mood disorders in stroke patients, interviews were obtained from 37 patients at 1 year and 48 patients at 2 years follow-up. In-hospital evaluations for these 65 follow-up patients found that 9 patients (14%) had symptom clusters of major depression, 12 patients (18%) had symptom clusters of dysthymic or minor depression, and 44 patients (68%) did not meet the ...

There is now some evidence that depressed mood is associated with activation of the immune system. First, we evaluated, within a cross-sectional design, NKCA (in vitro) in 49 subjects meeting inclusion criteria either for a major depressive episode, for dysthymia, or for "double depression". We found that recent and long depressive episodes (dysthymia) are associated with a lower immunodepressi...