There are many reasons that provide the argument for "treating" clinical depression. However, health professionals tend to view "treatment" as based on "top down" information and with management generally involving recommendations being put to the patient by the professional. However, when we examine the trajectory of people who have done well over the years and decades, such a model is rarely evident and is often strongly rejected by such patients. Further, when we examine the strategies that they find helpful in managing their depression, the highly-rated strategies rarely correspond with what health professionals recommend. This paper suggests that the impact of depression is most likely to benefit from recognizing a "partnership" model and that nuances of that partnership need to vary over the different stages of depression onset, development and maintenance phases.