The efficacy and acceptability of psychological interventions for depression: where we are now and where we are going

Depression is an eminently treatable disorder, although estimates of treatment efficacy have been inflated by publication bias. Patients with less severe depressions respond to even nonspecific interventions, whereas patients with more severe depressions require treatments that mobilize specific mechanisms. The cognitive and behavior therapies can be as efficacious as medications in the treatment of severe depression and have an enduring effect that medications lack. Medications may interfere with those enduring effects when added in combination and may prolong the life of the underlying episode when used alone. Thus the cognitive behavioral interventions might be the optimal first-line treatments for depression.