MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DEPRESSION AND ITS TREATMENT (II)

Abstract

This paper and its first part (Sanz & García-Vera, 2017) analyze the veracity of ten ideas about depression and its treatment that are defended in media widely available on the Internet or in some prestigious clinical practice guidelines and manuals of psychopathology or psychiatry. These ideas hinder patients’ access to appropriate treatment for their depression and favor the medicalization of this treatment over the use of psychological therapies. In this second paper, six ideas about the treatment of depression are contrasted with the results of the scientific literature. A review of this literature indicates that, contrary to these ideas, psychotherapy cures depression and, at least in the case of cognitive-behavioral therapy, is efficacious in both mild-tomoderate and severe depression, is equally as efficacious as antidepressant medication, prevents relapse and recurrences better than antidepressant medication, and is usually a short-term treatment. The results of this review are discussed in the context of the need for –and difficulties of– transmitting health information based on existing scientific knowledge.

Keywords

• Depression
• Psychotherapy
• Antidepressant medication
• Efficacy
• Health literacy.