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Calling for a new approach to depression

theguardian.com

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Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#111

Post by WhitneyLand »

milankragujevic wrote: post #87

I am disenhearted by the apparent pseudo-scientific thinking in the comments on this article, and how it'll "be better if you just go workout and eat better", which might work for some people, but not for everyone. If there was a scientific study about changing life habits to stop depression, I'd bet that it would have the same amount of effectiveness or even less than SSRIs. I myself have been "miraculously" cured f…

sounds like you have some valuable experience to share, but it would be helpful to breakdown how much you are a disagreeing with the article and how much you are disagreeing with tom cruise style psychiatry denial.

clearly there have been people helped by psychiatry, but clearly a lot of it has been debunked because, not a surprise, science is supposed to debunk itself and self-correct and iterate to better things.

so while in general it’s a losing proposition to say the field has no value, we need to separate the concept of science from specifics of how it’s practiced in particular cases. this is not a black and white issue. some drugs and practices and practitioners can be life saving while others are the opposite.

it would be interesting to know how right this article gets things for the claims it makes.

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#112

Post by taneq »

dboreham wrote: post #61

I'm surprised to see this as "new" because there has been work published since the late 60's [1] and widely known since the early 90's [2] showing that depression is often no more and no less than "having depressing thoughts". That is, if you can persuade the person to believe that they don't have a good reason to be depressed, they stop showing signs of depression. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman […

I thought that, if you're actually depressed, it kind of implies you don't have "good reason" to be? I mean, if you're feeling terrible because bad things are happening to you, you're not depressed, you're just legitimately miserable.

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#113

Post by ascorbic »

Quite apart from the generally pseudo-scientific content, there is a big part of missing context in this: the author's background. Johann Hari was first found to have plagiarised large amounts of his published work over many years, and then to have used sockpuppet accounts to make negative (and libellous) edits to the Wikipedia pages of his critics. This is his first major publication since his disgrace. Is it really that surprising that somebody whose career was left in ruins is likely to identify hating ones job as a cause of depression?

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#114

Post by zaptheimpaler »

I totally agree with this, and I will repeat a somewhat controversial view I hold:

Governments & business owners directly gain power & influence in the world via their citizens/workers productivity. The western attitude to "mental illness" is shaped VERY strongly by this - when you get "depressed" working an overly stressful job with no hope of anything better, it is better to convince the poor sap that its a problem with THEM rather than a problem with the world. Then give you some pills to make it better.

This dysfunctional culture will swallow up all your time, force you to work on things you fundamentally don't believe in, leave you isolated from people and then tell you its your fault for being depressed. We need to make the world stop dehumanizing us. Monkeys in cages get depressed.

When 5% of people are depressed, maybe its fair to say they should seek treatment on their own. When 30%, 40%, 50% of people are depressed.... its time to adapt the world to fit peoples well-being instead of the other way around..

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#115

Post by jjeaff »

thomasfortes wrote: post #102
mmirate wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, I guess that makes me complicit in all this too. No, that makes the salespeople, and your bosses at that communications company, complicit. We're just as neutral and tool-like as the computers we program.

This argument is dangerous. You can extend that to any point of the chain, salespeople can be considered as just neutral and tool like as programmers and the blame shifted up ad infinitum. While I don't think that he was complicit in this case (maybe the thought that what he was doing could have bad repercussions never went through his head, I don't know...), if you know that you're writing a program that will be use…

I would point out the difference in someone who simply creates a tool, and a salesperson who, perhaps, knowingly lies, stretches the truth, hides inconvenient truth, and otherwise uses unethical means to promote something they know is wrong.

There is also a very steep scale of diminishing complicity. Is the accountant that works at the electric company which provides electricity to the office building where the sketchy sales guys plot to sell their unhealthy products also complicit (assuming he knows what goes on there)?

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#116

Post by tcj_phx »

flowless wrote: post #110
justasitsounds wrote: post #35

There seems to be an increasing number of non-academic articles, essays and books that are expressing the idea that the Serotonin hypothesis of depression is flawed. It seems like the drug industry just picked up this idea in the 70s and has been running with it (to the bank) ever since Anecdotally, I have come to believe that SSRIs have a temporary mood-altering effect, possibly combined with a placebo effect that w…

My mother suffers from depression and is medicated already for quite some time. Every year when autumn comes her condition gets worse and she ends up in hospital for few weeks where they change her medication and let her recover just to experience the same during the next year. What's especially stunning to me is the reaction of my father and my family who instead to provide her with support and peaceful environment…

> Every year when autumn comes her condition gets worse and she ends up in hospital for few weeks [...]

Light is anti-stress. Sounds like your mother would benefit from supplemental light (UV/red/etc) when the sun goes away for the winter. Enough UV, but not too much...

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#117

Post by Jaruzel »

justasitsounds wrote: post #35

There seems to be an increasing number of non-academic articles, essays and books that are expressing the idea that the Serotonin hypothesis of depression is flawed. It seems like the drug industry just picked up this idea in the 70s and has been running with it (to the bank) ever since Anecdotally, I have come to believe that SSRIs have a temporary mood-altering effect, possibly combined with a placebo effect that w…

I take an SNRI (newer variant of SSRI), and have done solidly now for over 2 years. However before that I had some failed attempts of taking other long-term SSRIs.

When I started taking my current medication, it was due to a massive breakdown which left me an uncontrollable sobbing mess on the floor. I was totally incapacitated. I started taking the SNRI (along with Diazepam/Valium for immediate effect), and after about 10 days, I became massively suicidal; It was just through sheer willpower, and the knowledge of upsetting people who cared about me that prevented me from doing anything about it. After about 3 weeks or so, those daily feelings dissipated, and I started feeling more 'normal'. Well people said it was 'normal' - for me, I just feel odd.

I live with the 'altered' version of me, knowing it's not really who I am. Coming to terms with just that, is the hardest part of being in this state.

My dose is really high, and I have no intention of increasing it. I also committed (properly) to therapy, and that helped immensely. I constantly consider getting my dose lowered, with the aim to be totally off the drugs, but in reality, I know that will never happen.

My psychiatrist said that "first time depression usually results in a re-occurrence 40% of the time, second time depression is 60%, and if it hits a third time, that's you done - you will always be this.'

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#118

Post by newfoundglory »

taneq wrote: post #112
dboreham wrote: post #61

I'm surprised to see this as "new" because there has been work published since the late 60's [1] and widely known since the early 90's [2] showing that depression is often no more and no less than "having depressing thoughts". That is, if you can persuade the person to believe that they don't have a good reason to be depressed, they stop showing signs of depression. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman […

I thought that, if you're actually depressed, it kind of implies you don't have "good reason" to be? I mean, if you're feeling terrible because bad things are happening to you, you're not depressed, you're just legitimately miserable.

I believe it’s called endogenous v exogenous depression. Someone who is considering suicide because they failed an exam is not very well described as “just miserable", even though there's an exterior trigger for their feelings.

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#119

Post by newfoundglory »

ianamartin wrote: post #42

The part about funding studies and throwing away the ones that don't say what they want about a drug is worse than described because a lot of the funding goes to graduate programs where the students have no choice but to find results favorable to the drug. I have an ex-girlfriend that went into the PhD program for Neuroscience at a reputable university. Her entire degree and living stipend was paid for by a pharmaceu…

I don't know if you're aware of this, but drugs don't get FDA approval based on any single study, let alone the one you described.

Re: Calling for a new approach to depression

#120

Post by nasredin »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #106
milankragujevic wrote: post #87

I am disenhearted by the apparent pseudo-scientific thinking in the comments on this article, and how it'll "be better if you just go workout and eat better", which might work for some people, but not for everyone. If there was a scientific study about changing life habits to stop depression, I'd bet that it would have the same amount of effectiveness or even less than SSRIs. I myself have been "miraculously" cured f…

There are many, many studies on changing life habits (working out) as a methodology to treat depression. It is actually _as effctive_ as SSRI's, and MORE effective for a longterm treatment for depression.* However, _not all treatments work for everyone_. Certain SSRI's work for some and not others. This also holds for exercise. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26978184 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti…

Not an expert.

Low energy often comes with depression. So it's not easy as telling a depressed person to "do more exercises".

Depression is "invisible". I like to think that being depressed is like having a broken leg. You can't just get better by yourself, you need proper medical treatment.

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