When mood and time align: nasal esketamine reduces lived time disturbances in treatment-resistant depression.
International journal of psychiatry in clinical practice – July 10, 2025
Source: PubMed
Summary
Improvements in one's sense of time can precede traditional signs of depression recovery. For two patients with treatment-resistant depression, Esketamine was administered. Their progress was monitored using standard scales and the Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience (TATE), which assesses the lived phenomenology of time. Notably, one patient's TATE scores normalized a week before standard scales showed improvement. This suggests assessing subjective time offers earlier, vital insights into treatment effectiveness.
Abstract
These two cases highlight the utility of a focused, structured clinical phenomenological interview in measuring treatment effectiveness in subjective experience. Two male patients, aged 35 and 27, of Serbian ethnicity with treatment-resistant depression were treated with nasal esketamine, with clinical progress monitored using both the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and the Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience (TATE), a structured instrument assessing the patient's felt sense of time. Notably, TATE scores in the first case reached general population levels at week 4, one week prior to the treatment response, as indicated by MADRS. These findings underscore the value of phenomenological assessments in complementing traditional depression scales to capture nuanced improvements during treatment.