If you're reluctant to take medication, or suffer unpleasant side effects, psychotherapy is a viable alternative. In general, however, psychiatrists agree that the severely depressed do best with a combination of medication and psychotherapy. Psychotherapy involves verbal interaction between a trained professional and a patient. The therapist helps people gain insights about themselves and change the thoughts, feelings, and behavior that are contributing to the depression. This type of therapy is based on the theory that depression arises from disturbed social and personal relationships.
Therapists try to help patients learn to cope with interpersonal conflicts.
This method is based on the view that people's perceptions of themselves and the world control their emotions. Various forms of talk therapy and behavioral exercises are used to dispel negative thought patterns and beliefs. This approach employs the idea that depression is the result of past conflicts that have been pushed back into the patient's unconscious. The therapist meets with the patient several times a week to identify and resolve past conflicts connected to present problems. In this method, human behavior is seen as the sum of one's past experience, genetic inheritance, and current reality.