Depression Treatments with no real Value: The new Science behind Antidepressants
Treating depression with chemical drugs has become a widespread acceptable solution in today’s world. The new science reveals that the magic pill is nothing else but the magic doing of our mind as findings reveal that placebo sugar pills show just about the same results without the serious side effects of the chemical antidepressants. How can this be?
The featured article in the Newsweek magazine of February 8th “The Depressing news About Antidepressants” by Sharon Begley is a very informative read about the pharmaceutical solution as treatment for depression in the light of new scientific research that looked at placebo vs antidepressant pills.
In discussion with psychologist Prof. Irving Kirsch who has taken the very difficult role to bringing this data into the light, Sharon summarizes the findings and, thus, challenges the notion with her article that depression is simply a biochemical imbalance that is correctable with a antidepressant pill. Find Irving Kirsch talking about the Myth of Antidepressants below this article.
The question that needs to be addressed here is what comes actually first: are the feelings that lead to depression causing a chemical imbalance or does the chemical imbalance affect our feelings and cause depression?
There is certainly a vicious circle happening here as both of the above is certainly true once we are on our way to feeling depressed. Nutrition can affect our biochemical balance equally as our thoughts can. But can the magical pill really cut to the roots of the cause of everything? Or can it at least lift us out of the black hole so we can begin our journey to recovery?
The answer is not that easy especially in the light of the new findings in scientific research around antidepressants. How can it be that a sugar pill, a placebo, can work the same wonders like the real chemical pill? How can it be that pills are prescribed for depression that affect serotonin levels in exactly the opposite ways: one increasing serotonin and the other one decreasing serotonin. How can these two pills show the same effects on our biochemistry? Or do they at all? Is it really the pill or is it our belief that affects our sense of emotional balance?
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