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Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#41

Post by omginternets »

Waterluvian wrote: post #33
omginternets wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Though I struggle not to be equally suspect than this is also just hopeful thinking. I think we all do. Certainly, I struggle with that as well. I think this is an inherent property of undecidable questions (contrary to most well-formed scientific theories, which are valuable precisely because they can distinguish themselves from hopeful thinking). Here's something to consider: some kind of hopeful thinking may be a…

Now that is an idea that resonates with me. It feels like a slightly abstract application of “it’s the journey not the destination.”

Something to throw into Google Translate, since we're talking about things that IMO are better described with poetry than analysis :)

>Tout le monde veut être libre

>Personne veut être seul

>Pas d'ordre à donner ou à recevoir

>Personne à faire rêver ou à décevoir

>Ne rien n'attendre des autres, pas d'espoir...

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#42

Post by moshegramovsky »

supportengineer wrote: post #28
calibas wrote: post #27

A big part of depression is negative thinking, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that positive thoughts, like hope, would lessen depression.

In a late-stage capitalism world, where the climate is collapsing, and homes are unaffordable, where does hope come from?

This doesn't get said nearly enough. Social media is also to blame. I know one person who got upset about his credit score (low 700s) from watching videos about it and then kept consuming information until he was seriously depressed about his (good) finances.

When I was in my twenties and early thirties, I never worried about any of this at all.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#43

Post by NickM »

supportengineer wrote: post #28
calibas wrote: post #27

A big part of depression is negative thinking, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that positive thoughts, like hope, would lessen depression.

In a late-stage capitalism world, where the climate is collapsing, and homes are unaffordable, where does hope come from?

Not to downplay the current world problems, but you could make similar arguments at any point in history about any number of big problems humanity has faced. Yet, people still find hope and keep solving problems.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#44

Post by teaearlgraycold »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #19

I don't want to downplay depression (which I have no experience of), or come across as being flippant, but could the placebo effect in many of these kinds of trials be as simple as "a caring person (professional and/or stranger) interacting with the depressed subject improves their condition?"

That seems really easy to control for

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#45

Post by benatkin »

calibas wrote: post #27

A big part of depression is negative thinking, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that positive thoughts, like hope, would lessen depression.

It's a complex issue. When I think of times I deal with negative thinking, it is usually rumination. Rumination is a big issue for me, and it can be negative, positive, or even neutral. Positive rumination is better, but I can overdo rumination even if it's mostly positive.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#46

Post by insickness »

>The take-away should not be that ketamine “is just a placebo,” Heifets emphasized.

This is the very definition of placebo and why double blind studies are done. The control group and the actual group both improved thinking they got the drug.

> In fact, there may be physiological resonance between the placebo effect — in other words, hope — and how ketamine works.

This is just mumbo jumbo. There's no 'resonance effect' if it works the same in the control group.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#47

Post by [deleted] »

supportengineer wrote: post #28
calibas wrote: post #27

A big part of depression is negative thinking, so it's not too much of a stretch to believe that positive thoughts, like hope, would lessen depression.

In a late-stage capitalism world, where the climate is collapsing, and homes are unaffordable, where does hope come from?

[deleted]

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#48

Post by tonnydourado »

omginternets wrote: post #7

Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…

> that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience

I thought the same thing when reading the article, but then I started to wonder how the fuck would you double blind that?

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#49

Post by alisson_dover »

acchow wrote: post #39
omginternets wrote: post #7

Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…

Much of the benefit of psychedelics is the introspection , which you can do sober as well (although the depth of the reflection is magnified and qualitatively different while tripping). This is confirmed by the linked study (which shows that placebo-ketamine is also very effective).

Many psychedelic-era personas expressed this sentiment as well: you don't need psychedelic drugs to reach that state, you could also spend 10 years practicing meditation daily.

This view ignores the major application of these substances. Ketamine-induced self-therapy is accessible instantly and acts as a major reset. When you are experiencing long-term depression and/or anxiety, the advice to "just meditate" or do deep introspection is wildly counter-productive. Depressive state is very frequently accompanied by an unhealthy focus on the internal voice and on over-analyzing own life/motivations/purpose/etc. Having an "introspection session" in this state is a borderline dangerous advice.

Re: Ketamine's effect on depression may hinge on hope

#50

Post by pard68 »

b33j0r wrote: post #21
omginternets wrote: post #7

Beyond the importance of controlling the placebo effect, I am worried that a lot of the drug-depression research is overlooking an important possibility: that the thing about ketamine/psilocybin/etc that is helping with depression is not some latent property of the molecule, but rather the actual transcendent experience of the trip. In other words, the trip is the point, not the mechanistic neuro-tinkering [0]. Impor…

Agree. I have heard stories of people who “had one treatment and never smoked/put their elbows on the dinner table ever again.” My experiences seemed to benefit more from watching David Attenborough and feeling a connection to life. I’d interpret the dad of a family of mountain lions as an analogue of my dad, etc. Seeing events as taking place in a dissociated context. All that introspection is what I found useful ab…

That's not silly at all. Like the other guy who posted, connecting back to "life" is pretty important. My family committed to this at a very extreme level in 2020 and we fulfilled it in April 2021. Our lives have been changed for the better in so many ways!
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