Online Major Depressive Disorder Treatment: Find Depression Recovery Today

Major depressive disorder, also called “clinical depression,” is a lasting low mood that you may experience as sadness and/or a general loss of interest in life. It can also include or lead to a variety of other emotional and physical symptoms.

The causes of depression are many, and multiple factors contribute to the development of this disorder. You may inherit a genetic susceptibility toward it. Other health conditions can lead to depression, and traumatic life events or living in a challenging environment can trigger it.

For this reason, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment for depression. It's not as simple as just taking medication. On the other hand, many people with depression spend years in therapy when they need medication as part of their healing.

What is Major Depressive Disorder?

Being sad is a natural part of living. Healthy children and adults may feel sad or depressed in certain circumstances, like a family member or friend passing away or when they go through a life crisis. However, these feelings of sadness are usually short-lived. When a person experiences these feelings of sadness for an extended period of time, they may have major depressive disorder, or MDD.

Major depressive disorder, often referred to as clinical depression, affects how you think, feel, and behave. MDD can lead to a number of emotional and physical problems, sometimes causing major disruptions in a person’s normal day to day activities, or worse yet, thoughts of suicide. 

Major depressive disorder is more than just having the blues, and you usually can’t just “snap out of it.” MDD often requires treatment from clinical professionals. 

Major Depressive Disorder DSM-5 Specifiers

Each person is different and can experience different symptoms. To clarify what type of depression you have, a thing called a specifier is often added by your provider. Let’s review some of the major depressive disorder DSM-5 specifiers:

Mixed Features

Mixed features was one of the two added specifiers in DSM-5. This specifier allows for manic symptoms as part of the depression diagnosis in patients who did not meet the full criteria for a manic episode. 

Anxious Distress

Anxious distress is the second newly added specifier in DSM-5. This specifier includes an unusual restlessness or worry about possible events, or from a perceived loss of control

Melancholic Features

Melancholic features is a severe type of depression that brings about a loss of feeling or response to a once pleasurable activity. It is associated with early morning awakening, a worse mood in the morning, unusual feelings of guilt, feelings of agitation or worn out, changes in appetite

Atypical Features

Atypical features is a type of depression that allows a patient to feel temporarily happy or cheerful due to positive events that occur. During this time, a patient’s appetite may improve, they may feel the need to sleep excessively, and may have a heavy feeling in their arms or legs.

Psychotic Features

Psychotic features is a type of depression that is accompanied by hallucinations or being delusional. 

Catatonia

Catatonia is a type of depression that causes a patient to seemingly be in a daze for a long period of time, or not speaking for a long period of time. A patient with this type of depression may not respond to what’s going on around them, may be silent, and may also be motionless.

Seasonal Pattern

Seasonal pattern is a type of depression that can cause you to have recurring episodes of depression during certain seasons, like late fall or early winter. 

Postpartum Onset

Postpartum onset is a type of depression that can cause you major depression during pregnancy or within four weeks following delivery. 

DSM-5 Criteria for Major Depressive Disorders

According to the American Psychiatric Association, at least 5 of the following symptoms below have to be present during the same two week period and must also represent a change from previous functioning; 

1. At least one of the symptoms is either 1) a depressed mood or 2) loss of interest or pleasure.

• Depressed mood: For children and adolescents, this can also be an irritable mood
• Diminished interest or loss of pleasure in almost all activities (anhedonia)
• Significant weight change or appetite disturbance: For children, this can be failure to achieve expected weight gain
• Sleep disturbance (insomnia or hypersomnia)
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation
• Fatigue or loss of energy
• Feelings of worthlessness
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate; indecisiveness
• Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or specific plan for committing suicide

2. The symptoms cause significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

3. The symptoms are not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or another medical condition.

4. The disturbance is not better explained by a persistent schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, delusional disorder, or other specified or unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders

5. There has never been a manic episode or a hypomanic episode

Major Depressive Disorder Levels of Care

Outside of the primary care setting, there are a few levels of care available to individuals with eating disorders. Let’s review major depressive disorder disorder treatment options:

Outpatient

• Often where the treatment process begins
• Patient lives at home and attends hourly sessions at their providers’ offices
• Appropriate for patients who are medically stable, motivated, self-sufficient, and have adequate support and structure at home

Intensive Outpatient

• Typically occurs in a specialized setting (e.g., a clinic or hospital)
• Patients live at home and attend sessions three to five times a week that last approximately three hours each
• Program may include numerous types of therapy, including, but not limited to, individual, group, and counseling
• Appropriate for patients who are medically stable, self-sufficient, and have adequate support and structure at home, but may need some degree of external structure beyond self-control

Partial Hospitalization (Full-Day Outpatient Care)

• Occurs in a specialized setting and can be connected to a hospital program or a free-standing facility
• Patient requires a high level of supervision and monitoring
• Patient must be able to demonstrate some ability to retain the gains made in treatment without 24-hour monitoring
• Patient must not be a suicide risk or medically compromised to the point of requiring hospitalization
• Patient must have sufficient resources and motivation to attend program
• Patient’s home or living environment must be one that can be supportive of the recovery process
• Wide variety in quality of programming and hours of available treatment across programs, making it critical that patient’s needs and circumstances are appropriate for this level of care
•     Care is typically 5– 12 hours per day, 4– 7 days per week.

Residential Treatment Center

• Highly specialized programs that can be operated independent of hospital setting, but sometimes connected to a hospital setting
• Indicated when patient is not able to retain gains without 24-hour monitoring
• May be indicated when severity of symptoms necessitates constant monitoring in order to initiate and sustain symptom-free behavior and normalized eating
• May be indicated for patients whose activities of daily living are compromised by the disorder May be indicated for the development of a normalized, healthy lifestyle conducive to long-term health and well being
• May include specialized approaches that help the patient develop routines and activities of daily living that create patterns of behavior that are conducive to recovery
• Useful in situations with a high degree of psychiatric comorbidity that require intensified focus during treatment
• Sometimes indicated on the basis of a lack of supportive and safe environment where the patient can be expected be able to make meaningful, retainable progress
• May be appropriate when patient is overwhelmed with symptoms and unable to refrain from reverting to symptoms or other behaviors that compromise their well being when alone
• Appropriate for patients with either lower or higher levels of motivation, but generally patients must enter treatment voluntarily

Inpatient Hospitalization

• Generally used for a period of short-term stabilization proceeding initiation of treatment at lower levels of care
• Indicated in situation where patient is a suicide risk or gravely disabled by symptoms and unable to participate in residential or lower levels of care due to presenting symptoms, which may include depression, poor motivation, poor insight, and/ or other factors that limit ability to meaningfully participate in lower levels of care
• Appropriate in situations where hospital-based medical care is indicated (i.e., IV lines or other more invasive medical treatments are needed)

Major Depressive Disorder Treatment Options

For most people suffering from major depressive disorder, medications and psychotherapy are very effective treatment options. Your provider should encourage you to regularly meet with mental health professionals such as yourself.

Medications

Fortunately for patients, there are many types of antidepressants available today. It’s important that you discuss possible side effects with your provider. A few types of medications include:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
• Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)
• Atypical antidepressants
• Tricyclic antidepressants
• Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs)
• Combination of medications

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a process of patients talking about their major depressive disorder and the related issues it has caused them. Psychotherapy is also known as talk therapy or psychological therapy and can be an effective treatment for depression. Treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy can be used. 

Psychotherapy can help you treat major depressive disorder:

• Find negative beliefs about themselves or behaviors and replace them with healthy ones
• Adjust to their current difficult situation
• Find coping strategies to get through their issues
• Identify underlying factors that may be contributing to their depression
• Set goals for their life
• Find a sense of control and satisfaction in their life

Finding Depression Recovery

If you think you or a loved one needs depression treatment, you’ve come to the right place. The first step to depression recovery is acknowledging you need help and then seeking help. 

Our team understands the pain of living with depression. We use an approach that addresses all aspects of this disorder and may include both psychotherapy and medication based on your symptoms, history, and situation.

You may have had many frustrating experiences trying to recover from depression or been told in a variety of ways that you should simply cheer up or snap out of it. We know that depression doesn’t work that way. We will always have compassion and respect for what you are going through.

Healing and having a sense of meaning and joy again are available. Getting there isn’t a straightforward path. Your healing journey is likely to have good and not-so-good days with the good days gradually increasing until they outnumber the others. It all starts with having people who thoroughly understand the condition and whom you feel safe turning to for guidance, support, and comfort.

Our team is here to be that safe space for you—so you can have true healing and days that keep getting better and better.

Get Online Major Depressive Disorder Treatment

My name is Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, I am a consultant psychiatrist in Miami, Florida. I believe that compassion, when directed towards self and others, can lead to profound health and healing. If you need online major depressive disorder treatment, I can help! I have created a unique treatment model in which you will have the  opportunity to work with providers who I specifically refer to based on your current experience, diagnosis and needs.  I build this team around you and will coordinate your care with the goal to find meaning in your experience, and free you of your symptoms so that you can feel more at peace, and have greater capacity to adapt to life circumstances, to challenge yourself, to be creative, to develop intimacy and to have a fulfilling lifestyle With more than 20 years of clinical experience and a vast network of clinical partners, I’ve developed a unique treatment approach that delves into the underlying issues that place a person at risk for mental health conditions.  Together we will create a protocol and treatment plan that is well coordinated, and that can guide you on your healing process, toward health and inner peace. Contact me today!