Challenging Depression
The Go-To Guide for Clinicians and Patients
Preface
1. Knowing the Enemy: The Faces of Depression
2. Diagnosing the Enemy: Why Careful Differential Diagnosis is Important
3. Understanding the Enemy: Theories of What Causes Depression
4. What is “Me” and What is “Illness?” Personality Versus Mood Disorder
5. Staying Alive: Dealing with Suicidal Thoughts and Impulses
6. Finding Treatment and Paying for It: Dealing With the Healthcare System and Insurance
7. Facilitating the Collaboration Between Patient and Clinician
8. Psychotherapy is More than Talking to a Nice Person: Specific Approaches to Dealing with Depression
9. Choosing an Antidepressant for Major Depressive Disorder: Getting to Know the Drug Families
10. Evaluating the Success or Failure of Pharmacotherapy
11. My Antidepressant Isn’t Working. What Now? Sophisticated Approaches to Augmenting, Combining, and Switching Medicines
12. Bipolar Depression Requires Different Approaches
13. Child and Adolescent Depression
14. Extreme Measures: Brain Stimulation, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Vagus Nerve Stimulation, and Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
15. Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Herbs and Supplements
16. Living a Healthy Life While Living with a Psychiatric Illness
17. Learning More: Books and Web Sites