nature.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
eventually have another episode. In general, the earlier, the age of onset, the more likely is a recurrence (Reus, 1988).
Regarding the prevalence of clinical depression, it is the most common complaint of individuals seeking mental health care (Gotlib, 1992). Yearly, clinical depression is diagnosed in more than 100 million people worldwide; about 10 million of these are Americans (Strickland, 1992).
The incidence rate of clinical depression is much higher in females than in males (Strickland, 1992). Finally, lifetime prevalence (the proportion of people who develop severe depression at some point in their lives) is more than eight percent with the condition appearing to have increased in prevalence over the last 50 years (Gotlib, 1992).
According to Shuchter, Downs and Zisook (1996), the first formal notions of depression can be found in Hippocrates' theory of melancholia. While formal scientific study of the condition began in the 1950s, the original initial work on the classification of mood disorders was accomplished by Kraepelin (1913/1921) who categorized mood disorders into the two basic divisions of manic-depressive insanity and dementia praecox.
The modern classification method is an outgrowth of work on the research criteria for primary affective disorder developed by Feighner, Robins, Guze, Woodruff, Winokur and Munoz (1972) who later became known as "The St. Louis Group." The St. Louis Group's work was refined by Spitzer, Endicott and Robins (1978) whose refinements served as the conceptual foundation for the DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association, 1980). According to the American Psychiatric Association (1994), both the DSM-III and the DSM-IV were designed as atheoretical diagnostic systems usable by clinicians from diverse psychological schools of thou...