Letter

Rethinking childhood depression

BMJ 2005; 330 doi: 10.1136/bmj.330.7488.418 (Published 17 February 2005)
Cite this as: BMJ 2005;330:418.1

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Does childhood depression exist?

  1. D B Double, consultant psychiatrist (dbdouble@dbdouble.co.uk)
  1. 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 …

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