Dysthymia and Chronic Depression States: Diagnosis and Treatment

The research group has been involved in a series of studies to validate diagnostic subtypes of chronic depression and investigate responsiveness to antidepressant medications in placebo-controlled clinical trials. The overall goals are to define depressive symptoms and syndromes that respond specifically to various classes of medication, and to discriminate between chronic depression syndromes which represent bio-genetically determined affective disorders versus learned character pathology.

Current studies in progress include:

1. A long-term study of desipramine for pure dysthymia and double depression.
2. A long-term study of sertraline versus imipramine for double depression and major depression--chronic.
3. A long-term study of netazedone versus cognitive-behavioral therapy for chronic depression.
4. A study of interpersonal psychotherapy versus desipramine for treatment of pure dysthymia.