Medication, Shock Therapy Best for Depression

Many news organizations late last week reported the above, based upon the findings from a study in The Lancet, a UK medical journal. Of course, the reality isn’t so easy to put into a news bite. What the study looked at was a specific set of treatments. Among the treatments the study looked at, it found support for the effectiveness of medications and ECT.

Because the study didn’t look at the effectiveness of specific types of psychotherapy, it says nothing about the effectiveness of psychotherapy for depression. We know from a few decades worth of research, however, that psychotherapy is also a very effective form of treatment for nearly all types of depression.

Also, few serious professionals question the efficacy of ECT. Nobody says it’s ineffective. What professionals do show some concern about is that its side effects — memory loss of unknown size, depth and duration — is sometimes as bad as the condition it’s purporting to treat. It’s great if your depression lifts as a result of ECT, but not so great if you can’t remember anything about your childhood. The Lancet study says nothing about these sometimes devastating effects.

Antidepressant medications and electroconvulsive therapy, when warranted, are the most effective treatments for moderate to severe depression, despite the concerns both have raised in the public mind.

That’s the conclusion of an analysis of the last five years of research into depression. The study, led by scientists at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, appears in the Jan. 14 issue of The Lancet.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 16 Jan 2006
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