[Problems of current diagnosis of depression]

Diagnostic approaches to depression have been changed during last decades. The criteria of a depressive episode have become more formalized but too broad. Instead of a well-structured formulation of a depressive syndrome with universally recognized melancholic symptoms, psychiatrists have deal with the list of different features, sometimes controversial, which meet the formal criteria for "major depressive disorder". It is making possible to reveal a lot of typical and atypical depressive conditions, and to offer an aid for many people with mental health problems. At the same time, the absence of the strict clinical criteria didn't allow to "translate" modern instrumental findings into scientific understanding of depression and, further on, into practice.