Treat the patient with the utmost dignity and respect. The depressed person may be exceedingly despondent or agitated. The person may be fearful and panic-stricken. The patient may find eye contact difficult. But what the person is in this depressed state is not what the recovered person will be.
People sometimes assume a luxury with the sick.
In a way they imagine that they can treat the sick person any way they please. This does great harm, preventing in some degree the patient's ability to assume once again a position of respect. Friends may have come to avoid the depressed individual. Some people may have been positively insulting. If psychiatrists treat the depressed as they would an ill member of their own family, they may have started their recovery.