This guide is part of the main page for a psychiatrist in Marbella.
Ninety minutes to understand before treating
Depression has many faces: the classic sadness, but also irritability, physical pain, insomnia, brain fog at work, or an autumn that never lifted after moving to Spain. The 90-minute first consultation covers your story, your physical health and every treatment you have tried, so the plan starts from evidence rather than assumptions.
Treatment usually combines psychotherapy and, when indicated, antidepressant medication chosen for your symptom profile — with reviews, e-prescriptions and safe tapering built in. Sleep is treated as a priority, not an afterthought.
If things feel urgent, priority appointments subject to clinical suitability and availability exist for exactly this; reviews can continue by secure video across Spain.
Questions
Depression — frequently asked questions
How is depression different from feeling sad?
Sadness is a normal response that comes and goes with circumstances. Depression persists for weeks, drains energy and pleasure from everything, distorts thinking towards guilt and hopelessness, and disturbs sleep and appetite. It is an illness with effective treatments — not a character flaw.
Do antidepressants change your personality?
No. When they work, patients describe the opposite: they feel like themselves again. Antidepressants act gradually, their effects are reviewed at each visit, and any decision to stop is planned and tapered with me — never abruptly.
What if I have already tried antidepressants and they did not work?
That is precisely where a thorough psychiatric review earns its keep. We check the diagnosis, doses, duration, missed physical causes and untreated insomnia before concluding anything. There are well-established strategies for depression that has resisted a first treatment.
Can depression be treated online?
Follow-up works very well by video consultation, and many of my international patients continue online. For a first assessment of a severe depression I usually recommend starting in person; I will tell you honestly what is safe in your case.
What should family members do?
Take it seriously without taking over. Practical company — meals, walks, appointments — helps more than advice like “cheer up”. If you notice talk of death or hopelessness, do not keep it secret: raise it in consultation, and in an emergency call 112 (Spain’s suicide helpline is 024).