Ringing Out Despair: Phone therapy gets call as depression buster

It may be time for mental-health workers to pick up a new depression-fighting tool—the telephone. People taking antidepressant drugs for a bout of depression do particularly well, at least over a 6-month period, if they also take part in a program that includes telephone psychotherapy, a new study finds.

Evidence of telephone therapy’s mood-enhancing effect raises the prospect of expanding the reach of depression treatment, says the investigation’s director, psychiatrist Gregory E.