Rethinking childhood depression

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7488.418

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Does childhood depression exist?

D B Double, consultant psychiatrist (dbdouble@dbdouble.co.uk)

Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Partnership, Hellesdon Hospital, Norwich NR6 5BE

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 …