this was absurdly interesting to read. Thank you for posting this. The part were people that didn't respond to placebo, and the meds were actually useful in those cases, was especially enjoyable.

Though personally I would have classified severe depression as, only for patients that would not respond to a placebo, and exercise and diet improvements. Aka literally nothing else works.

While obviously they still be in extreme mental disarray due to depression, even if they exercise/placebo/diet improves the situation, it indicates to me that there's an issue with how different people would classify "severe depression".