New German guidelines for the treatment of depression - the central role of psychotherapy

The paper introduces the new German Guidelines for the Treatment of Unipolar Depression in Adults. An overview is given of the long timespan of the development and the process of consensus decisions. We report the essential parts of the statements and recommendations. The recommendations in the guidelines stress the importance of psychotherapeutic approaches to the treatment of depression as a baseline or adjunct treatment to pharmacotherapy. We also describe conflictual issues, such as methodological problems in the psychotherapy section, bias in pharmacotherapy research, and competition in different fields of the health care system. The German Guidelines are a progressive step in the field of health care. They integrate the contributions of many different providers and levels of care.