[holbue]

Please be careful not to generalize when proposing solutions, because their is not the depression(1): Depressions can be caused by very different things, can cause somewhat different symptoms and certainly can be solved using very different approaches. I met a lot of of depressed people, most them got out of them with different approaches (meds, therapy, changes in their environment).

I myself tried the approach mentioned, during therapy, without any success: Achieving something just didn't produce any positive effect for me. Then I got treated (as last resort) with ECT, my condition improved temporarily, and suddenly, within the same therapy, I started to feel an effect and was able to stabilize.

In short: Propsing "Do <x>, it most likely will help you" is not a good idea, as it is quite depressing for the depressed (at least for me it was). Maybe it's better to say sth like "Try <x>, maybe it helps, if not, there is also <y> or <z>. There is a lot that can be tried, maybe something might help you. "

(1) A doctor explained it to me like that: "depression" is more like a term to group together conditions that partially share symptoms, and that is it basically used for handling the insurance stuff etc. For treatment (at least for severe depressions), the term is too rough to be useful. E.g. a lot of severely depressed people also show symptoms of psychosis as side effect.

EDIT: Formatting and reformulated a bit (I think I was too harsh)