BMJ  2005;330:418 (19 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7488.418

Letter

Rethinking childhood depression

Does childhood depression exist?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—For the debate about rethinking childhood depression to degenerate into a semantic argument about its existence would be unfortunate.¹ Reification of biomedical diagnosis acts as a justification for so called evidence based treatments, which currently in the case of childhood depression are antidepressant drugs, cognitive behaviour therapy, and interpersonal therapy. The question is whether this process of reification is necessary for clinical practice, and I agree with Timimi that it is not.¹

The onus is on Spender and Wilkinson to define exactly what they mean when they use the term childhood depression, which they do not do in their commentaries.¹

In the same issue Wade and Halligan ask whether biomedical models of illness make for good healthcare systems.² The potential danger of the biomedical model is reductionism. By contrast, psychosocial diagnosis does not necessarily require a single word label, and that single word label may not add much . . . [Full text of this article]

Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Partnership, Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich NR6 5BE dbdouble@dbdouble.co.uk

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