DEPRESSION AND MEDICATION

Any therapist who understands people knows that there are no magic pellets when it comes to getting through life’s hard times. Whether or not we like to believe it, drugs help, but don’t cure. People are not merely an amalgamation of synapses. They remain greater than the sum of their parts. Mood medications may often help. However, so does good talk therapy and often a combination of both works the best. Meds may open the door so that clients can walk through their dark spaces and learn new tools to cope with their feelings and with life. The study stating drugs don't cure everyone is no surprise to any of us who have worked with people over time. I want to scream from the rooftops; “Perhaps there’s a chance of sanity yet.” We are not machines. We have souls. Let us learn to get through hard times, endure pain and come out the other side. Below is a fragment from a recent study that proves my point of view.

Antidepressants fail to cure the symptoms of major depression in half of all patients with the disease even if they receive the best possible care, according to a definitive government study released in March.

“Significant numbers of patients continue to experience symptoms such as sadness, low energy and hopelessness after intensive treatment, even as about an equal number report an end to such problems -- a result that quickly lent itself to interpretations that the glass was either half empty or half full.”
Human beings are born with predispositions towards ways of seeing and being in life. Evolution and environment remain influential in an individual’s development. How long will we continue to argue this already settled point?