Clinical depression is an illness marked by sadness, feelings of worthlessness, changes in weight, appetite, and sleep patterns, and sometimes even thoughts of death. Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Douglas Jacobs, founder of the National Mental Illness Screening Project, said that as many as 10 percent of any workforce suffer from depression at any one time. That results in a loss of productivity, increased use of sick time, and days out of work. Depression not only affects a person's work life, it can also affect relationships with friends and family members. The good news is that clinical depression is treatable with counseling and medication.
Treatment can be successful within a few months.
That's why Jacobs founded the National Mental Illness Screening Project and why the Project has made its depression screening program available to employers across the country, including Harvard. The simple message is depression is an illness with signs and symptoms. One of the main difficulties in treating depression is getting depressed people in for treatment. There is also the difficulty of distinguishing clinical depression from being a bit down because of negative events in life. But the blues are transitory.