Lesson 3: Antidepressants
For Your Benefit
In 2000, the American Psychiatric Association issued the second edition of its Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients with Major Depression. As an example of psychiatrists essentially advising psychiatrists, the Guidelines are well worth checking out. Note how the Guidelines distinguish between the acute (early), continuation (middle), and maintenance (later) phases of the illness, with different or slightly different goals for treatment in each phase.
Note also how the Guidelines advise on what to do if initial treatment fails, and the various treatment options that are sequentially outlined in the accompanying diagram. This is called a treatment algorithm, which presents the practitioner with a range of choices based on expert consensus. Another depression treatment algorithm can be found starting at page 14 of this 156-page document (Adobe Acrobat required). Treatment algorithms are not in common use, but that may change as psychiatrists gradually switch from shoot-from-the-hip treatment strategies to those based on science and clinical experience.
