You have not landed on something nobody understands

The largest synthesis available, 409 trials and 52,702 people, comparing talking therapy against nothing, against other therapies, against medication and against both combined. Treatment for this works, and that conclusion rests on a very large base.

409 randomised trials covering 52,702 people, pooling talking therapy against no treatment, against other therapies, against medication, and against the two combined. It is the largest synthesis available on the question. It supports treatment being worth seeking. It does not settle which treatment suits which person, and that part is worked out with a clinician rather than read off a paper.

Cuijpers P, Miguel C, Harrer M, Plessen CY, Ciharova M, Ebert D, Karyotaki E (2023). Cognitive behavior therapy vs. control conditions, other psychotherapies, pharmacotherapies and combined treatment for depression: a comprehensive meta-analysis including 409 trials with 52,702 patients. World Psychiatry, 22(1), 105 to 115 doi

Depression is among the leading causes of years lived with disability worldwide. That is here for scale rather than comfort: this is not a rare thing nobody has studied, and a great deal of effort has gone into it.

Depressive disorders are among the leading causes of years lived with disability worldwide. The point of putting it here is scale rather than reassurance: this is not a rare thing that nobody has looked at, and the modelling behind global burden estimates carries wide uncertainty, which the authors state themselves.

GBD 2019 Mental Disorders Collaborators (2022). Global, regional, and national burden of 12 mental disorders in 204 countries and territories, 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet Psychiatry, 9(2), 137 to 150 doi