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Complimentary and Alternative Medicine

Overview Complimentary and Alternative Medicine or CAM is a group of healthcare practices and products that are are not currently considered to be part of modern, Western medicine.  The word ‘complementary’ describes a treatment that is used ‘in addition to’ and ‘alternative’ describes a treatment that is used ‘instead of’ conventional treatment. Thus, CAM treatments […]

Behavioral Activation (BA)

Overview Behavioral Activation (BA) is an effective psychotherapy for the treatment of depression. Sometimes depression can become a vicious cycle where people stop doing things or being social because of their depressive symptoms, which in turn, worsens the depression because people become may become isolated and miss out on fun opportunities.  BA is based on […]

Assessing Depression

Clinician Administered Assessment Receiving a formal assessment from a medical or mental health professional is the gold standard for making a diagnosis of depression and there are several important reasons a professional evaluation may be helpful:   Depressive symptoms may be caused by other factors that a professional can rule out. A professional is uniquely […]

Depression Causes

Causes Most likely, depression is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. Depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain. Brain-imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), have shown that the brains of people who have depression look different than those of people without depression. The parts of the brain involved […]

Depression: Treatment – Exercise

Overview. Many people are familiar with the idea that exercise is good for health. The benefits of exercise for heart health, maintaining a healthy weight and managing diabetes are well established. What some people may not know is that exercise is also good for the brain and can help improve mood. Exercise can have antidepressant […]