Treatment
If left untreated, a typical major depressive episode may last for about six months, while about 20% of these episodes can last two years or more, with 50% of depressive episodes ending spontaneously. However, even after the major depressive episode is over, 20% to 30% of patients have residual symptoms, which can be distressing and associated with disability.
Regarding the treatment of major depressive episodes of severe intensity (multiple symptoms, minimal mood reactivity, severe functional impairment), combined psychotherapy plus antidepressant medications are more effective than psychotherapy alone.
Read more about this topic: Major Depressive Episode
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“I am glad you agree with me as to the treatment of the mining riots. We shall crush out the lawbreakers if the courts and juries do not fail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
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—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)