Category: Adult Depression / Dysthymia
Panel Discussion
Panel Discussion 10 - Effective Interventions in Mental Health: Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies 2017 Depression Theme Group
Keywords: Translational Research | Treatment-CBT | Treatment-Other
Presentation Type: Panel Discussion
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Michael Thase, M.D.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine / Philadelphia VA Medical Center
Nothing to disclose
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Panelist(s)
Moderator(s)
Even though psychological and pharmacological treatments are effective for most mental disorders (including the most prevalent ones, i.e. depression and anxiety disorders), only half of treated patients experience a clinically meaningful reduction in symptoms or achieve full remission for these disabling conditions. The fact that a substantial proportion, does not or only partially, respond to existing treatments is highly problematic and expensive. Moreover, relapse rates in major depressive disorder (MDD) are unacceptably high even for patients who do respond to treatment. Despite four decades of experimental and neuroscientific research as well as clinical intervention studies, effect sizes for treatment efficacy have not increased and novel treatment modalities for mental health disorders are largely lacking in routine clinical care. Mental health care will benefit from a rigorous and critical evaluation. For 5 months an international group of interdisciplinary experts cloistered themselves in the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies and, together with scholars from a number of other disciplines, worked on this problem from perspectives of discipline-wise network science, economics, epidemiology, critical theory, clinical psychology, and translational neuroscience as part of the theme group ‘My optimism wears heavy boots’ (NIAS https://www.nias.nl/theme-groups/Overview%20of%20Theme%20Groups/my-optimism-wears-heavy-boots). What came up was a new way of looking at depression as an epidemic, specific breaks in an empirically derived translational network that strongly prevent critical insights from reaching the public, and novel suggestions for how to address these breaks. Drs. Bockting, Siegle, and Hollon were part of this group and will describe the group’s work. Dr. Thase was not part of the group and will offer an outsider’s expert opinion on its conclusions.
Learning Objectives:
- Described breaks in translational pathways from basic science to the clinic.
- Described how depression prevention/treatment efforts could be modified by considering it an epidemic.
- Described how novel technologies can yield new options for systemic cost-minimizing interventions for depression.