Jessica is diagnosed with major depression. The formal criteria as spelled out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. Roger's diagnosis is dysthymia. In the DSM-IV, the essential criterion for this diagnosis is a depressed mood for most of the day, for more days than not, for a period of at least two years. 3. low energy or fatigue 4.
Major depression has the advantage of being researchable.
It is usually characterized by rapid onset, and most patients can be expected to get better within a reasonable amount of time. But we conveniently ignore the fact that most people like Jessica are permanently damaged by their experience with depression, and are likely to have more episodes as their life goes on. As far as Roger is concerned, no one wants to fund research lasting the amount of time to treat dysthymia adequately. But that doesn't stop Roger's doctor from prescribing the same type of antidepressants for him. In fact, they seem to be working better for Roger than for Jessica right now.