Combination Psychotherapy and Antidepressant Medication Treatment for Depression: For Whom, When, and How

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is among the most frequent and debilitating psychiatric disorders. Efficacious psychotherapy and antidepressant medications have been developed, and two-thirds of depressed patients respond to single-modality treatment; however, only about one-third of patients remit to single-modality treatments with no meaningful differences in outcomes between treatment types. This article describes the major clinical considerations in choosing between single-modality or combination treatments for MDD. A review of the relevant literature and meta-analyses provides suggestions for which treatment to use for which patient and when each treatment or combination should be provided. The review summarizes the moderators of single-modality and combination-treatment outcomes. We describe models of mechanisms of treatment efficacy and discuss recent treatment-specific neurobiological mechanisms of change.