Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers to this blog know that I have some serious concerns about dealing with emotional experiences referred to as depression or melancholy with the so called antidepressants. Certainly, people should be free to make their own decision regarding whether or not to take these types of pills, and I recognize very intelligent people decide to take them. That said, because…
Feeling depressed? If so, you may decide to consult with a psychiatrist or other medical doctor. By doing so, chances are your description of your feelings will be translated into a language of symptoms, diagnosis, and mental illness, and you will leave the doctor’s office with a prescription for pills marketed as “antidepressants.” Unfortunately, this medicalization approach is so inconsistent with scientific evidence that many…
Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Regular readers know that from time to time I address concerns about the use of antidepressants in our society. Well, as I was thinking about what to write about this week’s post, I learned of a new meta-analysis that was published in the medical journal Lancet that appears to support the claim that antidepressants are effective, at least in short-term studies. Although well thought…
According to the FDA, there has been a long-standing concern that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depression and the emergence of suicidality in certain patients during the early phases of treatment. Pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlled trials of antidepressant drugs showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 18-24)…
In a past post I asked the question, “Is Depression an Illness?” Many expressed strong feelings on this subject. Some argued that it is indeed an illness; others made the case that it was an experience that most of us go through, some more than others for sure, but classifying it as an illness leads one down a path toward taking unhealthy drugs that in…
