characterized by indefinite and at times fleeting symptoms such as moodiness, anxiety, or fatigue. Furthermore, when depressive symptoms finally do settle in, their several severities accrue and worsen often haltingly or imperceptibly, and it is the rare patient who can date the onset with any precision. This is not to say that acute onsets are never seen. To the contrary, they do occur, and some patients describe a rapid fall from emotional well-being into a depressive episode in as little as a few weeks. Such acute onsets of depressive episodes, however, are the exception rather than the rule for major depression.