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In spite of the fact that it was taking place on Thursday evening (7.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.), the panel was well attended. In his introduction, Juan Pablo Jimenez (Santiago de Chile) indicated the societal context of the topic:
Depressive disorders constitute one of the main health problems worldwide. Recent studies confirm the impression that the clinical presentation of depression is much more varied than it is typically thought to be. Nowadays we know that subclinical conditions are very common and often lead to major depressive episodes; chronicity is more prevalent and subclinical symptoms can lead to serious disability. Longitudinal studies have shown that the various subtypes of depression in official diagnostic classifications (DSM-IV, ICD-10), such as minor depression and dysthymia, do not constitute discrete clinical disorders but are probably different phases of a single condition, expressed along a dimensional continuum of symptomatic severity (; ). This view offered by modern psychiatry is closer to psychoanalysis, which has always stated that depression is better understood as a psychopathological dimension, ranging from the personality trait to the state or condition, than as a discrete diagnostic category.