Diagnostic assessment is the first move in receiving suitable cure for any depressive disorders. The person has to be put to psychological assessment to pinpoint whether the person suffers from any depressive disorder and, if so, the type of disorder he suffers from. The person’s physical history is also to be taken into consideration to arrive at any opinion about the mental condition of the person. The drug administration of any physical ailments may cause effects that may look like symptoms of depression. So, a psychologist has to rule out any such distracting factors before staring actual diagnosis of the illness.

A complete mental investigative analysis should consist of a person’s entire record of symptoms, the origin of the illness, the duration of the illness, the severity, previous occurrences and their treatment methodologies followed. The affected person should also to be probed about any prevalence of illness in family, its episodic history and treatments adhered to. The psychologist should also try to glean information about the person’s proclivity to suicidal thoughts. Alcoholism and drug dependence are the other points that should be looked into.

Finally, the analysis should look at the complete mental picture to estimate the entire gamut of signs and symptoms that afflict a person. This will be useful in assessing any other mental inconsistencies that may exist in a person.

The final course of treatment and therapy will depend on the results of the analysis. Some afflicted people may only need counseling and therapy. Others may need medications to alleviate their suffering, still some other people need both counseling and medications. But medications alone can not cure the illness; it only provides relief from the symptoms.

General Diagnosis of Depression

Clinical diagnosis is based on a set of signs and symptoms which include:

Insomnia or hypersomnia everyday

Noticeable apathy for the most part of the time

Extreme feelings of worthlessness most of the time

Difficulty in focusing; indecisiveness most of the time

Extreme diet variations

Observed psychomotor agitation or retardation

Persistent contemplations of death or suicide

These criteria help in diagnosing various depressive disorders which may require different treatments.

Disorder Recognition

In spite of the high incidence, only some people with depression get correct treatment. The following are some general diagnostic inaccuracies that may lead to inadequate treatments:

Inadequate inquiry: Insufficient gathering of information from affected people sometime makes recognition of disorder impossible. Affected people may ‘slip’ through the diagnostic process altogether, making them even more vulnerable in future. Sometimes psychologists diagnose depressed people in text-book fashion. They may follow the index of symptoms blindly and dismiss people with a yes or no diagnosis. The common "SIGECAPS" (sleep, interest, guilt, energy, concentration, appetite, psychomotor, suicide) index is no doubt useful, but a psychologist, by the very nature of his/her profession, should ‘get’ into the mind of the depressed person to try and find the underlying causes for the disorder.

Family inquiry: The depressed person may have a tendency to mask or exaggerate symptoms for reasons of fear or hesitancy. Due to the very nature of the illness, a depressed person may give some fictitious or wrong information about his/her problem, which a psychologist should be able to ‘see’ through and actually filter it to arrive at correct assessment of the person’s condition. For further assistance, the psychologist should take a person’s family into confidence to assess the person’s antecedents and general behavioral pattern. Family members should be forthcoming to give all information about the person’s past history and current status of the household and conditions.

Wrong Diagnosis: Wrong assessment and treatment are very much prevalent now-a-days. Sometimes the “SIGECAPS” index is ignored and assessment is made on some other diagnostic model which may not be relevant to the person’s condition and symptoms. Sometimes, the person may only be suffering from mild depression and the psychologist may assess it as major depression and may start treatment procedure accordingly. If the same person actually develops clinical depressive disorder later, the general treatment procedure for clinical depression may become ineffectual for him.

Treatment Failure: Explaining away a depression problem as mere manifestation of some other insignificant issue and not treating the person for depression is a common diagnostic assessment which may actually aggravate the depression problem in a person.