Types of treatment for depression fall into two broad categories: psychosocial and pharmacological. Within each category are many choices. Psychosocial treatment includes individual therapies, group therapies, vocational services, family couple’s therapies, as well as others.

Furthermore, there are different types of individual therapies, such as supportive, insight oriented or cognitive behavioral. There are also various levels of treatment setting, ranging from private practice settings, outpatient clinic settings, day treatment or partial hospital programs, and inpatient treatment.

Pharmacologic treatment involves the use of medications from various groups, such as antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antipsychotic, or anxiolytics. Psycho tropics are those medicines that are primary used in psychiatric care for the treatment of mental disorder, including depression.

However, there is often a crossover use of medicines from other medical specialties, such as from neurology, wherein antiseizure medications (anti convulsants) are frequently found to have efficacy in the treatment of many psychiatric conditions.

As part of an evaluation, your clinician will consider the most appropriate treatment plan for your depression. For a mild depression, psychotherapy alone may be recommended first. For more severe depressions, both medication and therapy may be recommended. If already in psychotherapy, your therapist may refer you to a psychiatrist for a medication evaluation of there is concerns about the level of response, the severity of symptoms, or confounding co-morbid conditions.

The type of therapy chosen can be depending on many factors such as cost, duration, or patient fit. Frequency of psychotherapy typically start at once per week may be more or less often depending on your individual needs or therapy type.

As part of the treatment plan, the treatment setting also needs to be determined. Most individuals can be treated in private office settings or outpatient clinic settings. Sometimes, a higher level of structure is needed in which more services can be provided, on a daily basis, such as in a day treatment program.

If impairment are severe or it safety is in question, hospitalization may be warranted. Within the hospital, several modalities of treatment are provided on a daily basis, making the treatment more intense.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.