Easing Depression Without Drugs
Depression affects approximately 18.8 million adults in the U.S. and is the nation’s leading cause of disability. Yet mental health experts say the front-line treatment for serious cases, antidepressant drugs, works only about half the time and can have troubling side effects, such as weight gain, sexual dysfunction, and even suicidal behavior. As a result, there has been renewed interest in finding nonpharmacological approaches to treating depression other than psychotherapy, which psychiatrists say is often ineffective by itself.
It is both amazing and very telling that in a mainstream article in a mainstream magazine in the U.S. about non-drug teatments for depression, not a single word is mentioned about the most common non-drug treatment, psychotherapy. To the hundreds of thousands of professionals who treat people who are depressed with psychotherapy and the millions of people who receive psychotherapy treatment for depression, this sort of article is just a slap in the face.
Folks should email and write BusinessWeek and this article’s author, Kate Murphy, and let them know that you know what? Treatment of depression involves a lot more professions than simply psychiatry.
(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
Loading ...You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
8 Comments to
“Easing Depression Without Drugs”
That is a rather remarkable oversight. I’ll write as you have suggested.
My personal experience, after 20 years off and on anti-depressant drugs + 30 years of psychiatric and psyhological counseling is this: for me these things only exacerbated the problem. Eventually, my identity was becoming more and more that of simply ‘emotionally disturbed’ or ‘mentally ill’… that, in itself, leads to even MORE depression! I am 57 years old and was in therapy on and off from the ages of 20 through 55. I had lost all faith in myself and was increasingly dependent upon a therapist and a pill…Last year, in June, I threw out the anti-depressants and the anti-anxiety pills and decided I was eithr going to sink or swim (finally). Oddly, I have been swimming ever since.
I have ‘down’ moments, related directly to money worries and loneliness, but not some mysterious chemical imbalance. I think we lean too heavily upon the ‘quick fix’ methods that often cause many more probs than they cure. That has been my experience in the area of emotional and mental ‘illness’ - and I have many, many years of experience by now. At this point, I could hang out my own shingle and shrink some other poor soul’s head.
Jennie Sheriff
Montana
I found that while drugs helped, it was the psychotherapy that really made a difference for me. After sessions with a therapist in San Mateo, CA, Dr. June Martin at junemartintherapy dotcom I really was able to make some life changes. I think the combination of drugs and therapy helped me in my critical period and now it feels like just therapy is all I need to keep things in check.
I just wanted to say thank you to Jennie for posting her comment. I have been thinking the very thing but not quite sure how to put it into words…. I find that I feel worse about myself when I look at myself as being emotionally unstable/ill/disturbed (depending on the day). I have just recently tossed out the drugs and just started to let whatever life I have be and I am starting to feel better (once again, depending on the day). Still feel as if I am missing something but that’s just the habit of taking the pills everyday. Anyway, thank you again for putting into words, for me, exactly what I was feeling
Dr. Grohol:
You write, …”not a single word is mentioned about the most common non-drug treatment, psychotherapy.” Obviously this is not true, nor is your description of the article’s subject accurate. In the first paragraph, which you even quote, it is clearly stated that as a result of side effects of pharmacological antidepressants:
“… there has been renewed interest in finding nonpharmacological approaches to treating depression other than psychotherapy, which psychiatrists say is often ineffective by itself.”
It IS true that depressed patients often require both psychotherapy and drugs. And the author clearly states the intent of the article is to explore non-pharmacological alternatives OTHER THAN PSYCHOTHERAPY. She does not say psychotherapy is bad or useless or doesn’t work, in fact the implication is the opposite. But she is writing about a completely different subject. There are plenty of articles, after all, about the benefits of therapy; not so many about non-drug or non-therapy adjuncts/alternatives to standard treatment.
That is not a “slap in the face.”. It is not an insult to write, in effect, “well, we’ve got drugs, and we’ve got therapy, and those work a lot of the time…but when they don’t, what else have we got?”
Your urging people to write Business Week and the author ….”and let them know that you know what? Treatment of depression involves a lot more professions than simply psychiatry” consequently is ridiculous. Your last sentence also doesn’t make sense in the context of the article, since both light therapy and exercise are discussed, neither of which is “psychiatry” to my mind. Those are the sorts of things people try in order to avoid seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist 
And they, too, often work.
Perhaps a little less judementalism and fewer knee-jerk reactions would be in order? You exhibit both, particularly the former, in so many of your essays that it is getting to be a bit disturbing, to me anyway. Conclusions need to be based on facts, not uninformed opinion or emotional jumps…or misreading of short, simple, articles by business journalists.
Cheers,
Karen
P.S. Apologies for the typo on “judgmentalism” - I’ve gotten too dependent on spell checkers.
You’re responding to a nearly 3-year old blog entry, but okay…
The point of the entry was not to be so literal (yes, the word psychotherapy was mentioned once), but to point out that the entire premise of the article was a shaky nad possibly dangerous one:
“As a result, there has been renewed interest in finding nonpharmacological approaches to treating depression other than psychotherapy, which psychiatrists say is often ineffective by itself.”
Which psychiatrists say this? And why just psychiatrists, what about family therapists? Psychologists? Licensed clinical social workers? Better yet, what does the *research* say? Well, the research says that psychotherapy is often effective in and of itself, and more so when combined with an antidepressant. But author dismisses the research altogether in this article because it doesn’t help her with her article.
So instead of writing about the *most effective* treatments for depression, one of which is psychotherapy (especially when combined with a medication), the author takes a detour down some scary treatment options.
TMS? Sure, it works for some people, but no more than psychotherapy. Surgery? Wow, I mean, that’s not even a mainstream procedure or treatment for depression 3 years later. Light therapy? Great for seasonal affective disorder, not so great for mainstream depression. St. John’s wort or exercise? Really the only two self-help methods that have solid research backing and are readily accessible by most consumers.
You’re right, though, my reaction to the article was over the top and definitely could’ve been better written. Hindsight is 20/20.
The article may be 3 years old, but patients that have been on antidepressants for lengthly
periods of time do become quite numb.
They forget who, and what substance they were
made of. The pill does wonderfully for the out break of an episode, but as you daily, monthly, yearly continue on the medication what is overlooked is at where you truly are in the scheme of things. After three years of being tracked by my psychiatrist her graphing revealed that I was at a point of normalcy. This summer I have enjoyed 9 weeks of no medications. It’s what allows you to really take a good whiff of the flowers and truly
experience the aroma without it being hindered by a very heavy coating of listlessness (jokingly the ‘Stepfford Wife Syndrome’).
For me the season is changing and Fall will approaching shortly. With SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) I know my days are
somewhat numbered until medication is once again phased back into my daily routine. In reality this is what I must do to survive daily until I can get to the next season.
Join the Conversation! Post a Comment:
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 28 Apr 2005
