Depression and everthing else

This reminds me of the time that Bruce Spingsteen was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek in 1976. This week, though, it's depression, featured in  two major New York magazines.
Head Case — Can psychiatry be a science? by Louis Menard joins New York Times Magazine's piece on Depression’s Upside. In Head Case, Menard reviews two books on the topic of depression —  Gary Greenberg’s "Manufacturing Depression" and Irving Kirsch’s "The Emperor’s New Drugs."
The discussion is in even greater depth than in the NYT article and reaching violently similar conclusions. Antidepressants don't work except in the cases that they do and talk-therapy works best unless it's an evil kind that's just getting you to accept the way things are.
It should be noted that none of the books or articles mentions other therapies that are in use today - ECT or TMS  (See the WebMD article, FDA OKs TMS Depression Device, for a summary of the two approaches.) or Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS).
In addition, depression is usually self-limiting, remitting spontaneously in about 50% of the cases. The trouble is that we don't understand well enough which 50% and the stakes for untreated and undertreated depression are very, very high.

via Current Worldwide Suicide Rate