Antidepressants are no better than placebo?!
I have had many calls and inquiries about a recent Newsweek article concluding that antidepressants show no advantage over placebo (sugar pills) in treating mild to moderate depression. Many have felt betrayed and confused not because they were taking useless medicines but mostly because their own personal experience did not match the Study’s conclusions.
As I have briefly mentioned before, my own response is different than the criticisms that have since been raised against the article. The responses have been mostly focused on the selectivity of the studies for a ‘meta-analysis’ and ‘technical’ criticisms. My approach is quite different as I do not believe our current definition of DEPRESSION is valid! We have come up with a set of descriptive symptoms and call them a single entity DISEASE. We then try to TREAT this arbitrary entity with protocols that do not take in to account individual variability. Two affected individuals might suffer from a set of similar symptoms but the approach to their treatment need to be very different: The first person might have existential dilemmas needing attention and the second one might be suffering from unresolved traumas.
Our ‘antidepressants’, when deconstructed, are no more than chemical modulators to make changes that ‘might’ lead to alterations in our attention, reward seeking, tendency to obsess, etc. The model I prefer is much more nuanced and does not dichotomize medications and non-medication interventions. Placebo, moreover, is not ‘no treatment’ but rather regular visits and care from doctors perceived as ‘healers’.
Overall, the article is useful as it challenges the current flawed views of the ’chemical imbalance’ models. Hopefully, it will not deter people from getting the help they need. As the title of a recent movie fits so many real life situations; IT’S COMPLICATED!