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What’s Stopping You From Seeing a Doctor About Depression?

Common reasons people avoid treatment and expert advice on how to get past them.

By Mary Anne Dunkin
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Joseph Goldberg, MD

Are you struggling with depression? Are you getting treatment for it? If not, you’re not alone. About two-thirds of people with major depression never seek appropriate treatment, and the consequences can be devastating: personal suffering, missed work, broken marriages, health problems and, in the worst cases, death.

The World Health Organization ranks depression as one of the world’s most disabling diseases. Yet with treatment, 80% of people with clinical depression improve, usually in a matter of weeks.

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So what keeps us from seeking help? “It’s hard to find out from folks why they are not coming [for treatment], because if they are not coming, they can’t tell us,” says Kate Muller, PsyD, director of psychology training and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. “But when they do finally get to our offices, they can certainly speak about the things that might have kept them from coming initially,” she says.

Major Depression: Reasons Why People Avoid Treatment

Therapists’ interviews with people who seek treatment, as well as community surveys, provide some clues as to why people don’t get help for depression. If you feel depressed and are trying to deal with it on your own, see if any of these reasons ring true to you. If they do, then follow the experts’ advice to get the help you need.

If I give it time, I’ll snap out of it. Although a case of the blues passes with time, clinical depression may linger indefinitely if not treated, says Erik Nelson, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center and staff psychiatrist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati. People can’t just snap out of being depressed. Often, in fact, depression has a biological origin. And like other medical conditions, it often requires treatment to control or heal it.

Waiting for depression to simply pass can be harmful for a number of reasons. For one, depression that goes untreated may become more severe, says Nelson. The longer the delay in treatment, the more difficult it may be to control, and the more likely it is to recur when treatment is stopped. There also is growing evidence that untreated depression can contribute to or worsen other medical problems. “Heart disease is the one that has been most linked to depression, but research also suggests a link between depression and metabolic issues such as obesity, diabetes, and diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer,” says Nelson.

Expert advice: Don’t allow depression to linger. Speak to your doctor. If you find it difficult to seek treatment for a mental disorder, remember that depression can have a biological origin and treatment for it may help prevent serious health conditions like heart disease.