It was interesting to see what our poll results were on this topic.  We would expect that many would say seeing a therapist, working with a psychiatrist or both - and that was the case.   What was surprising was that more than 20% felt that online forums and chat rooms were their best option.  Perhaps this shouldn't have been a surprise since our audience was answering this poll online.  A relatively small number of respondents said that participating in a support group was their best option.

It turns out that our preferences for depression treatment are not necessarily the most effective.  For example there are over 200 different types of psychotherapy but only a few have been shown to reliably treat depression.  There are also many different meds that can be prescribed but about a third of us don’t respond to meds.  For the other two thirds it can take six to eight months to find the best prescription drug or drugs.

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I sat next to a neurologist at dinner this past week.  He does research at UCLA.  We discussed a lot of things but our interests intersected the most when we talked about antidepressants.  He said that the placebo effect explained most of the effects of psychoactive drugs.

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There is a growing body of research that says that antidepressants might not be helpful for alleviating the symptoms of depression.  But you say, “They have helped a lot of people – medical doctors prescribe them”.  Perhaps you say, “They have helped me!”  How can it be that the research says that they might not work?

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