I will dutifully report on yet another professional’s opinion about the research literature on antidepressants. This time the “antidepressant is just a placebo effect” argument comes from a psychologist.
Irving Kirsch, a professor of psychology at the University of Hull in the U.K., says that antidepressants are nothing more than fancy and expensive placebos. He, of course, does not say this in a vacuum. No, of course not. He’s saying this in promoting his new book, The Emperor’s New Drugs (which, you know, is a “funny” play on the phrase “the emperor’s new clothes”).
Read on for a quick deconstruction of his argument (his argument as presented in an interview online, anyways).
The crux of the issue for me comes down to a question similar to this one: What about the hundreds of research studies published in the past 4 decades showing that antidepressants are better than placebo, or do have a positive impact on treatment? How do you explain all of that prior data without seeming like some kind of conspiracy theorist?
Kirsch has an answer.
Nevertheless, many studies suggest that 
antidepressant drugs do have an edge over 
placebos. How do you account for that?
When you do a clinical trial, you tell people that they might get a placebo. When researchers give placebos, what they are trying to control for is the expectancy of improvement, which can produce a sense of hope. You also tell them that the active drug causes side effects and what those side effects are. If I were a patient in one of these trials, I’d be wondering, well, what am I getting? And if I’ve started noticing side effects, and especially the side effects that had been described to me, I would no longer be “blind.” I would think, “Oh, my mouth is dry, that’s great — that means I got the active drug.” That would further increase my expectation that the drug was going to help. In the few studies where that has been assessed, about 
80 percent of patients do figure out what group they are in. So it’s actually the side effects, the undesirable chemical effects of these drugs, that cause subjects on antidepressants to do a little better than those on the placebo.
So his answer is simple — people know they are on the active treatment. All these decades of experimental design research — the kind of stuff we predicate the very foundation of all scientific knowledge when it comes to a drug’s effect in humans — is flawed. Fundamentally flawed. “Blind” placebo studies aren’t really blind to anyone.
There’s some truth to his argument. There is research to suggest that blinded randomized placebo control studies aren’t as randomized or blinded as we might think. I’ll give him that.
But that means that virtually all research that has relied on this kind of study design is flawed and useless. Not just for antidepressants, but for virtually any psychiatric medication (and many others as well).
This line of reasoning also seems to call into other types of treatment as well. How can you show the same effect isn’t happening in all those blinded control studies of cognitive-behavioral therapy? One could argue it’s even worse for those types of treatment, as all too often, the “control” group didn’t receive any kind of placebo — they were placed on a wait-list for treatment. Of course some sort of human interaction with another human being is going to come out on top.
Even if your control group was “education” or “social talk,” I think most people are cognizant enough that they’re not engaging in psychotherapy.
Is this the new house of cards we have built? By pulling apart one set of studies, isn’t it possible to use the same logic and reasoning to pull apart virtually any scientific study done on the subjective human nature of “feeling better” or “improvement” on symptom checklists?
Read the full interview: Psychologist Says Antidepressants Are Just Fancy Placebos
56 comments
Horrifying though it may be for an entire fields research to be discredited essentially in a single blow being hysterical and saying it undoes decades of work and everything else won’t serve any purpose,
but nor can we ignore the fact that yes it does discredit the majority of research into these drugs.
but didn’t we all really already know this?
you can’t honestly tell me you had full confidence in Antidepressants? and believed they were necessarily in all cases they are prescribed…off hand I DOUBT the benefit outweighs the health cots in at LEAST 60% of cases.
pretending they aren’t so widely misused and pretending the research done on them has any value at all when it doesn’t does NO ONE other than drug companies any good.
it shouldn’t be about the drug companies it should be about what is BEST for the PATIENT.
I suppose the last 3 medicines that my Psychiatrist tried on me, and left me so ill that I thought I was going to die, were placebo’s?? Oh, and for the record the only side effect(s) I was warned to watch out for was a rash, which I did not have.
Oh for Pete’s sake. Any human interactions does skew results – maybe if they put us patients in Skinner boxes to administer meds they could eliminate that bias?
Can’t help but use my own experience – anti-depressants definitely worked on my system when I first tried them, talk therapy ( different approaches) – later on,I wasn’t so dead certain…. Later on I may have been dealing more with a lack of skills …. but have no doubts that on some of us, some of the time, these meds are a goft.
Lots of typos. Apologies. A gift not goft. And talk therapy— didn’t alleviate the depression.
It continues to seriously concern me that people in the Field of Psychology discredit the use of drugs, something that is so controversial to the outside of the community that the people inside do not realize the harm it is doing to all.
The #1 people do not get treatment for depression is because of stigma – lack of positive belief that there is a biological problem (i.e. the term ‘it is all in the head’). Who wants to admit they have things posessing their mind? Nobody.
In Africa they are chaining people to trees, starving them, keeping them in the hot suns to fast out the ‘demons’. Not long ago did the U.S. pass the Mental Health Parity Act. The brain, the most complex organ in the human body, is just now getting equal treatment to the rest of the body?
Today a friend passed a CNN article to me about pharmaceutical companies stopping research and funding because of law suits and perception of placebos. I find it quite sad as they are the ones paying the research on the brain – it certainly is not coming from the public sector. This is because of how we in the community fight amongst ourselves and don’t show a strong front to the rest of the world.
I commend you for Shining a Light on this issue – it makes me so sad that the very people that are supposed to be helping our cause goes out and publicly hurts it.
We might not know the answers, but the Field of Research is young and changing. Corporations, public foundations, and consumers won’t take it seriously until we prove that it is a serious issue to tackle – real, of biological significance, and hopeful as it is up to 80% treatable.
So thanks for sharing and for letting me express! xoxo
CNN article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/14/depression.medication.ft/index.html?hpt=C2
Sorry – but one more thing. Look at the image used by CNN. Is that positive or hopeful? NO!
And you know what? Depression is one of the most hopeful diseases there are – yet continually it is portrayed in a dark, gloomy light. I’m putting together a petition right now for the press to stop – it absolutely must or we will never change the ‘stigma’ or negative brand of depression.
Thanks again for bringing this important topic to light.
I am tempted to say: “Yes, we have arrogant idiots on our side of the Atlantic also.”
Perhaps I will say it. I’m not remotely impressed by this guy from the above.
If antidepressants are just placebo… then how does Kirsch explain manic switching in bipolar clients given the drugs? I find it hard to believe that all antidepressant induced mania is just a coincidence or a placebo effect.
He’s a psychologist, forbidden by law to prescribe anti-depressants. I think he might be biased.
i had know my pycholigist for eight year he was married he wine and dine be gave me presents and always was there for me, I made the biggest mistake of my life i thought he cared for me or love me soon after he got his ways, I lost his fried ship and repect he even tried to mak3e ne feel quilty of his so called fear of sex since his wife was so called un atracted and he live for his children, word of advise there is not a trained professional with a degree in this feel that know how your mind things, they gain your trust, then make you feel special over a course of time maybe many years, they tell jokes make you laugh then lay on the quilt that they our not good enough, for you in bed, it the poor me syndrome, then they go home to thier wife and respected life style with no regard to how they hurt your felling. Do not be a victim if he married the law of god and common sense told me this is wrong.
should i simple tell him how i feel or wish him luck with his next victim
All I know is that many people who prescribe anti-depressants, simply prescribe them based on their opinion and experience, even though this could be biased.
I question any type of process where no tests are given to assess whether a patient is in need of anti-depressants, i.e. has low serotonin levels, which is what most anti-depressants are based on, being selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
This guy uses unpublished clinical studies, not including the published ones, as the basis for his book. I think that if he included data from the published studies, it would mess up his theory. He contradicts himself in this interview. At one point he says all antidepressants work equally well, and at another he says that if a person’s antidepressant is not working for him/her, getting short-term cognitive-behavioral therapy is the alternative for the non-working antidepressant. Sorry, I don’t buy his theories!
Dr. Kirsch is full of crap! I lost count on the thousands of dollars I spent on traditional psychotherapy for depression with very little relief. When doctors began prescribing antidepressants, originally they did not work. It took quite a while to find the right medication and dosage that alleviated the effects of my depression. If antidepressants are placebos, the first medication should have alleviated my symptoms.
His “opinion” is harmful to those suffering with depression. Antidepressants saved my life. As for the placebo effect – I had absolutely no confidence in them when they were prescribed.
Opinions like those of Dr. Kirsch discouraged me from taking antidepressants for six years. I credit my psychologist with convincing me to try them.
It saddens me that someone charged with helping others would publish such tripe.
Antidepressants definitely helped me overcome a few clinical depressions. That I know for sure.
me too. and bipolar meds work. this guy needs to go back to medical school
Actually, this topic above was a point I once raised in my residency, which you would understand did not go over well with my peers and supervisors. But, in the end, one of my supervisors, who was not an MD, did have valuable advice I think is part of the process: CHANGE BEGETS CHANGE. So, if you have the hope and belief that by taking medication might have a beneficial impact and the risks are minimal, then, this is a change.
In the end, the process is biopsychosocial. Sometimes, the meds open the doors to looking at how the past crafted the person at hand, and how implementing changes to the current issues around said individual can have a beneficial impact, and maybe gain some, if not much, resolution to the past.
Hope and faith, that is the foundation to work on!
Um, hang on – you didn’t read the book, or, presumably, the research he cites; you concede his argument has some merit; you present it in your opening paragraphs like it’s preposterous – and yet, we’re still waiting for the counter-argument! So this throws into question the great body of modern psych drug research. If that’s so unreasonable, then the counter-argument should be easy to present, and won’t require you to rely on the authority of that research simply existing. Either the research is founded on good principles that you can describe – or it’s not – or you don’t know enough about it to say either way, in which case I’d advise not weighing in with a blog.
To those of us wary of the great investment drug companies – and psychiatrists – have in this industry (note, dear readers, where this site gets its ad revenue), it’s not self-evident that the research should be taken at face value. But I’d be interested in reading actual arguments that support it or otherwise.
I work with combat PTSD and depression. I often refer veterans I see to a psychiatrist for medication, and often they are prescribed an antidepressant. The antidepressants are not always helpful, but they are helpful often enough–sometimes dramatically so–that I continue to refer. My take is that the newer generation of antidepressants were oversold. They were marketed as a medication that a general practioner could “fire and forget” It hasn’t turned out that way. So, now we are seeing a swing from believing they are miracle drug to believing they are not effective at all (except as a placebo).
He’s a psychologist and can’t prescribe drugs, in fact he’s almost in direct competition with psych drugs. He’s obviously very biased. Although I agree that antidepressants as well as other psychiatric drugs are overprescribed and not as effective as one would like, but I still think his theory has major flaws in it. First, if all antidepressants were placebos, than why doesn’t everyone with high hopes see relief from the first antidepressant tried? OR the second? In many cases it takes several different medications and med combination to find something that works well for depression.
Also, how do you explain that even that people have different (psychological) reactions to the same drug? For example Mania, increased sleepiness, increased energy, weight loss, weight gain,etc. And that certian antidepressants have shown to be more effective for different symptom types than others. For example, Wellbutrin has shown to be more effective than SSRIs for seasonal depression, but SSRIs are usually superior when it comes to anxious depression? Wouldn’t the effects all the same?
Anyway, not sure what he’s calling for though. Everyone should be in therapy? Therapy doesn’t work well for a lot of people, or isn’t accessible. People should stop developing newer, better, more targeted depression drugs? How are we supposed to improve then?
Although there maybe be some truth, especially when we are talking about milder depression, you can’t just make a blanket statement like that.
One could read Dr. Peter Breggin’s books and articles. He IS a board certified psychiatrist, and thus is able to write prescriptions. In addition, pharmaceutical cos are involved in developing “me too” drugs–not in innovative research that could possibly lead to cures. Much of the innovative research is done at medical centers/academic centers funded by NIH. Once the chemical is developed and hsows promise, we the taxpayers “sell”the patents to the pharm cos since they are “best at manufacturing and marketing” drugs. as though the poor little government does not have this capability. please…..the poor beleaguered pharma cos. whose incomes equal more than the entire south american countries’ gross national products income.
So, how do I decide which book makes more sense, “The Emperor’s New Drugs”, or “Against Depression”?
Dr. Grohol,
I think you are spot-on with your analysis of current antideppression treatment. We, as a society, are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to the treatments legally available to people today.
However, if you want a window into the future of truly effective depression treatment, check out the new research on hallucinogens currently being conducted by major universities across the globe.
Psilosybin is the only treatment for depression proven to work immediately following therapy, causing a true and lasting transformation within the individual. In other words, this therapy treats the causes of depressed individuals by giving them insight and perspective into the meaning of life, as opposed to merely attempting to alleviate their symptoms (which is the only real claim of currently prescribed antideppressants).
The ‘official’ research of this amazing drug is still in its infancy, but it’s already infinitely more promising than most of the glorified placebos on the market today. John Tierney illustrates the scope and potential of this new* field in a recent edition of the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html
Mushrooms are only part of the answer. Soon MDMA will make its way back into mainstream psychology, when researchers in the field figure out that the calming effects of MDMA, combined with the enlightening effects of psilocybin, allow the therapies discussed in the aforementioned article to be conducted outside of the watch of ‘moniters.’
Both drugs are already available in pill form on the black market, and soon the overwhelming evidence supporting the effectiveness of this category of therapy will bring the drug to a pharmacy near you. Mark my words, society will be better for it.
*This form of therapy has been utilized for millenia by more spiritually advanced cultures across the globe, and is currently used by the more spiritually advanced members of our society, too! If you’d like to try this treatment on your own, go to the parking lot outside of a Phish or Dead show, and listen for people who are seemingly asking everybody if they’ve seen a girl named “Molly Mushrooms.” These people are in fact selling MDMA and psilosybin.
Holmegm – scrap both those books, and read something by this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna
The true new frontier of depression treatment, and the only therapy that actually treats the causes of depression and helps the individuals in therapy, is described here in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html
Perhaps a different way of viewing this could be the strengths of plecebos instead of the weaknesses of antidepressants. Does the merit of one have to discredit the other?
I agree with Susan.
Medication also saved my life at least twice and I was not at all hopeful either time, refusing to take it for years the 2nd time, trying every possible alternative.
I have participated in a couple of studies myself on for depression (because I liked that I couldn’t be discriminated against due the complete anonymity… how sad is that?) But I can tell you first hand that they have to document ANY and ALL changes but I dare say the majority of studies are extremely short not allowing even close to enough time to evaluate if they are truly that effective.
The fist time I was unexpectedly put on antidepressants (the situation involved being taken in for evaluation by a police officer where I personally had never considered that I could be “depressed”… I didn’t really believe in that) it took at least a solid year of experiencing changes and “stabilizing” completely. Placebos are obviously going to get more short term credit because of hope itself and especially when it may take longer then study time allots for a real drug to start working effectively anyway. Further one notices when they stop taking them, depending on the drug it can be quite weird. Not so much with a placebo.
Honestly I could go on and on.
But this crap really bothers me 1st because I know personally first hand, despite the fact that I hate needing medication. 2nd as many have previously mentioned it feeds negative stigma, many goliaths that we already have to try and battle, often individually. 3rd, which has also been pointed out, people like this Kirsch often have ulterior motives (say money and the 15 minutes of fame. Hmmm…).
But mostly because the very thing that saved my life cost my little brother his life. He had taken medication before and it worked but due to such opinions and things like the militaries attitude toward treatment he didn’t continue taking them and bought into this type of bullshit also.
So to Mr. Kirsch, the nicest thing I can think to say is this, Go to Hell because you will likely be responsible (at least partially) for the loss of lives.
Well of course they’re not just placebos. Antidepressants are lifesavers for many of us. I’m really surprised that the media and researchers are still confusing situational depression, which responds to almost any change or substance, and serious depression.
I have early-onset major depression and dysthymia (the infamous double depression), and placebos, vitamins, and therapy could only go so far and eventually failed completely. Antidepressants were my final option because I had been so brainwashed against them.
I wish I had tried them first, because antidepressants rock (if you find the right one, which I did on my second try, woot!)! To have to live in an organic ghetto of biochemical low spirits — what kind of life is that?
Depression is a truly important emotion, but it can also be a part of a serious illness. Antidepressants can be lifesavers. http://karlamclaren.com/hello-darkness-my-old-friend
“…then how does Kirsch explain manic switching in bipolar clients given the drugs?…”
“…This guy uses unpublished clinical studies, not including the published ones, as the basis for his book …”
Dr. Grohol an article on the methods used to make drugs appear effective is in order here.
There is no ‘objective testable evidence’ that psychotropic drugs do anything.
Some of these bragged-upon drugs actually do opposite things in the brain yet they all get the same results. How is that explained? Something else is at work.
When my wife had a psychotic break thirty days after her office was changed eliminating Cubicle Level Protection I discovered a simple problem, discovered and solved forty years ago, is unknown by anyone in medicine or psychiatry.
No one treating patients is evaluating them for Subliminal Distraction exposure. If SD exposure goes up psychiatric symptoms increase. If that exposure decreases there will be a spontaneous remission.
What ever drug or therapy being used at the time will be credited with that remission. How else do you explain the many different treatments that appear to work but fail when scientifically tested.
First, I don’t know who’s crazier, Mr. Kirsch or Mr. Rodgers who is promoting hallucinogens for the use against depression. I took LSD in the 60’s (only 5 times-in a controlled setting) and it screwed my head up so bad I ended up in a psych ward for 3 months. (there were other factors too but that was major and stated as a part of my diagnosis).
Anyway, the subject at hand. Actually, I would never participate in a placebo based study. I would want the “real thing” and actually know I was taking a real antidepressant so I could accurately report any side effects (and I prefer NOT to be told what they may be, thus excluding any bias or suggestion). And in my own experience, I have battled with extreme nausea and vomiting (Paxil), the onset of rapid cycling for FIVE years (after being on Zoloft for ONE year) just to name two. Did I just make these side effects up (as I bent over the loo)? But miraculously I finally found an antidepressant that took away the sadness that was always at the edge of my thoughts, it took away going into the “black hole”, it took away the suicidal depressions. At larger doses it does cause mania (I’m bipolar) but I just decrease the dose. Did I make that up? I think not.
Anyway, that guy is nuts. I hope he never develops a debilitating depression, guess he’ll end up poopping one of those “placebos”.
What works for some does not work for others. It doesn’t matter what kind of therapy you are trying. If it works, great – placebo or not. If you believe it works then it works and isn’t that what matters? So, no matter what the study reveals people will hold onto the therapy that works for them. The important thing is to keep an open mind to all possibilites and if something doesn’t work – move onto something else. For me, medication wasn’t the answer. Give me a pill and tell me it will work at “fixing” the problem – to me, I’ve always been a “prove it to me” kind of person – but for my husband medication works. I’ve moved onto something else. But, no need to get upset over a study- it doesn’t change what is true for each individual.
Oops, meant “popping”, not “poopping”.
Oh, no, not another book about antidepressants being little better than placebos (if at all). After 10 years wasted in various talk therapies — including the much-praised CBT — I was granted a second chance to live a tolerable life when I found an antidepressant that I could tolerate. I didn’t expect it to work, but it did.
Now, 12 years later, I have not had a significant depressive episode. Have I been deluding myself on a daily basis, swallowing a placebo and somehow tricking myself into believing that it has quieted the crippling panic, dread, and despair that once consumed my every waking day? Come on, now.
And answer me this: how come Prozac worked very well in getting my dog to stop his dominance aggression? Didn’t he know that he was getting an inert sugar pill? Were his side effects — which mirrored many of those found in humans — also the result of a placebo?
I think I’ll steer clear of “The Emperor’s New Drug,” and take my dog with me.
Despite the headlines, I don’t think anyone is actually saying that the drugs ARE sugar pills – they obviously have *at least* physiological effects and side effects of whatever kinds. The real issue is whether they are MORE effective than sugar pills – whether they heal MORE people than doing nothing. To throw this into question isn’t the same as saying that they work for no one. Protesting that you’ve had a good experience is beside the point, and there is no reason to feel that your experience is invalidated by this question.
It is possible (obvious, even) that the drugs might work for some and be damaging for others. Lots who testify to having good experiences with the drugs know that they themselves have also had bad experiences with the ‘wrong’ drug or the ‘wrong’ dosage. Some people have catastrophically bad experiences with the drugs (I am not the only one who has lost a loved one this way), just as some people have catastrophically bad experiences with NO drugs. The real question is, when it’s all totalled up, do the results make the drugs MORE effective than what can be accounted for by the placebo effect?
It is a good scientific question, and if the placebo effect has NOT been adequately calculated for this situation, as Dr Kirsch is suggesting, then the science MUST improve. If the placebo effect has been adequately calculated for a situation when most people can figure out whether they have the active drug or not – then Kirsch’s argument is invalid. But I’ve yet to hear that argument.
Arguing for the science to be sound and testable is not the same as calling for the immediate abolition of a treatment. Don’t those of you getting treatment WANT the science on treatment to be as strong and logical and reliable as possible? Don’t you want research dollars to be well spent to find out what the best treatments REALLY are, not to be thrown away on mistaken assumptions?
thank you jabberwocky
The situation is actually quite a bit worse that Kirsch describes. If you look very carefully at the data, you find that antidepressants are harmful to long-term outcomes.
Investigative reporter Robert Whitaker has written a whole book on the subject of the harmful effects of psychotropic drugs (and, no — he’s not a Scientologist). The book is called, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. You can visit the Amazon page here:
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452417/
Whitaker’s home page is here:
http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Home/Home.html
I’ve seen him speak on two occasions, and the data he presents is most disturbing.
Am, has anyone commenting on this thread actually read any of Professor Kirsch’s work?
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045
https://www.msu.edu/course/psy/101/snapshot.afs/altmann/kirschSapirstein98.pdf
http://alphachoices.com/repository/assets/pdf/EmperorsNewDrugs.pdf
Full disclosure: I am a psychologist and have read much of Professor Kirsch’s work.
It is controversial, but there are three meta-analyses backing him up. All the links above are freely available for those more interested in understanding than ranking.
From reading some of the comments I see that there are those out there with the idea that antidepressants were created to cure depression. Antidepressant pills are not “happy pills” as so many people like to call them. For me, they lift me out of that soul-sucking place where there is no glimmer of light in the darkness, no energy or desire to have a better life, no understanding of the possibility to feel good, or better, even. They do not make it go away; I often still have a small bit of melancholy or blaise feelings that lurk blurring the edges of my “happier” life. But they make it possible for me to use therapeutic techniques and tools to work on bettering things further. I am one who believes antidepressants are over-prescribed and not for everyone, but that they ARE a legitimate, necessary, and useful tool for many people suffering with depression, and I fully support that they be used in combination with psychotherapy to usher in the best results.
Also, does Kirsch believe anti-depressants are useless in all areas, or just when treating depression? Because many SSRIs are used to treat OCD and anxiety disorders, etc.
I see your point jabberwocky, but I still think the whole “placebo effect” wouldn’t even occur if they threw out the placebo when doing trials. They seem to tamper with the results so I agree with you there.
But when I was diagnosed with gastrointestinal diseases (GERD, hiatal hernia, indigestion), I tried first Zantac, then Prevacid, then Prilosec, which was the one that “worked”. I did NOT take a sugar pill. How stupid that would be. So why not give depressed people only pills to treat depression to see how they work? May be a silly comparision but you get the point?
I’m also not saying that the “right” anti-dep will cure depression (although, if you’re reading up on it, the future holds hope that they can actually target the area(s) of the brain where the problem lies and treat it specifically), but this last anti-dep (and it is literally my last one) has worked miracles, I never knew I could feel this good. So yes Shannon, it really has become a “happy pill” to this grateful gal! I’ve stopped crying, having nightmares, keeping an awful journal, I feel good, am even cleaning my house more! Wow. Anyhoo. Whatever. 😉 Take care.
Shannon, your comment said very specifically what I was going to say. Not all anti-depressants are good, we know that, and not all will work for everyone, that is why there are so many. I’ve had times off them and used counselling and psychiatry and ended up wanting to kill myself over and over. At least with medication I can look out from under my rock even if I cant get out from under my rock. Kirsch is looking for his 15 minutes and had to be controversial to get it. I guarantee in my place that antidepressants are not placebo, or they would have no effect. No one wants to help those in the “Too Hard” basket, so we sit here waiting for someone who can say “Accept yourself as you are and do the best you can”.
P.S. There is no cure for Major Depressive Disorder, I’ve had it since I was 8, my mother called me “Mental” and “Attention seeking”. I don’t speak to her any more, that was one step in trying to get better and not hate myself for being a polyphobic depressive with panic and anxiety disorder
Quote: “Studies have linked neurogenesis (birth of neurons) to the beneficial actions of specific antidepressants, suggesting a connection between decreased hippocampal neurogenesis and depression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis
This was what I meant by research into what area(s) of the brain and how they/it work(s) to cause / alleviate depression.
Includes other fascinating factors, stress, exercise, etc. and their role in neurogenesis.
And yes, I do believe that the more they explore, the closer they are in coming up with a cure.
Thank you, DisgruntledPhD, that was both interesting and useful.
Rose123, I’m genuinely pleased that you’ve had success in finding a treatment for your depression. It is a terrible condition. I do want to respond to you here, though:
“I see your point jabberwocky, but I still think the whole “placebo effect†wouldn’t even occur if they threw out the placebo when doing trials. They seem to tamper with the results so I agree with you there.”
This is not my point. Placebos are used on control groups in trials for extremely important reasons. Try reading this for a basic explanation of the reasons scientists use control groups, and placebos in control groups:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-control-group.htm
Without placebos and control groups, we wouldn’t have any valid way to measure the real effects of a drug on anybody.
The placebo effect is what happens when people expect to get better because they are taking a drug. It’s like positive thinking – it does actually help people get better at least a little bit. If you stopped using placebos on control groups, you would still get the placebo effect on the people taking the real drug, as well as any non-placebo effect of the drug. It is just something that happens when humans get treatment.
I have tried every type antidepressant,I have read many studies,I have been in treatment for over 35 yrs,I have had a long hard look at every type of treatment there is.I have developed my own ideas and approach to mental illness.That is the key.The individual must be given the tools,time and understanding to make the transformation from mental illness to mental health on his/her own experiences and validation of ones self by study of human behavior and belief systems.Basic understanding of philosophy and social order reveals many real everyday life dichotomy,dysfunction and paradox is the social norm.The top 5 religions repeatedly express mans complete and total insanity.It is this understanding that we begin to heal from the damage of humanity.I agree with placebo effect as the truth and function of antidepressants.There is no data to prove otherwise.It is not fact but a lie(the most harmful of all social elements)to conclude otherwise.
I didn’t last long with “The Emperor’s New Drugs”.
The better book is “Manufacturing Depression” by Gary Greenberg, a therapist who explores his own depression and his participation in a clinical study of depression medication.
I see your point jabberwocky, and read the site, but it also says: “Those who participate in research may undergo lengthy physical examinations and fill out multiple questionnaires to make sure they are as similar to everyone else in the group being tested.”
How accurate is that? We are all different, from different backgrounds, socio-economic groups, different environments. No easy answer.
Also, I read a post once from a guy who would get accepted into these control groups by lying. Yes, lying. He needed the money. He had no guilt about it either and didn’t care if it threw off the results for the rest of us who need the data to be accurate. So I wonder how many more are like him?
But again, I still say that the focus needs to move towards finding the area(s) of the brain that have caused the depression in the first place and treat that. Maybe placebos help, maybe not. It’s just not an accurate enough science for me. Sorry.
Not to say that “some” of what this Psychologist is saying has merit; however, I find what he has to say to have a placebo effect considering that he is a Psychologist and therefore cannot even prescribe medications!!! Go get a real degree, then write a book and I “might” consider it have some truth!!!
I don’t see why are people always so outraged by reports like this… The whole chemical imbalance has not been proved. We don’t know HOW do these happy pills work, except they upset the hormonal balance… It is a fact that often they “stop working”. It would be interesting to research if they don’t stop working simply when the person is in yet another difficult situation.
what bugs me more are actually advertisments on this site. If you want to dismiss evidence of someone just because he is psychologist… you sadly, have to dismiss a lot of pro-drug articles on this site. Because those who pay for these advertisement would not like to have articles about willpower and eastern philosophies being more powerful than their products be published alongside their ads.
The trouble with the idea of placebos is that sometimes they work. I'[m always curious about what’t going on up there that makes them work!
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