The future of psychiatry

Existential depression: A meaningful diagnostic entity?

OBJECTIVE

To examine the construct of existential depression and whether it represents a distinct diagnostic entity.

METHOD

Descriptive psychopathology and phenomenology are used to define the characteristics of existential depression and for comparison with other presentations of low mood.

RESULTS

Existential depression can be differentiated from other forms of depression by careful appraisal of symptomatology. Drawing attention to this, and likewise other distinguishable yet under-recognised forms of depression, may help stimulate interest in further research on the classification of mood disorders with the prospect of greater diagnostic specificity and more precise treatment matching.

CONCLUSION

Existential depression is a clinically discernible diagnostic entity.

Understanding Mental Health and Cognitive Restructuring With Ecological Neuroscience

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological methods have contributed much toward an understanding of the information processing systems of the human brain in the last few decades, but to what extent do cognitive neuroscientific findings represent and generalize to the inter- and intra-brain dynamics engaged in adapting to naturalistic situations? If it is not marked, and experimental designs lack ecological validity, then this stands to potentially impact the practical applications of a paradigm. In no other domain is this more important to acknowledge than in human clinical neuroimaging research, wherein reduced ecological validity could mean a loss in clinical utility. One way to improve the generalizability and representativeness of findings is to adopt a more "real-world" approach to the development and selection of experimental designs and neuroimaging techniques to investigate the clinically-relevant phenomena of interest. For example, some relatively recent developments to neuroimaging techniques such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) make it possible to create experimental designs using naturalistic tasks that would otherwise not be possible within the confines of a conventional laboratory. Mental health, cognitive interventions, and the present challenges to investigating the brain during treatment are discussed, as well as how the ecological use of fNIRS might be helpful in bridging the explanatory gaps to understanding the cultivation of mental health.