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Talk therapy for the depressed 'could be wasting millions', say psychotherapists »

Posted by: omerazam 1 month, 2 weeks ago

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Depression sufferers may not be receiving the most suitable treatment because of a Government obsession with one type of therapy, warn leading psychotherapists

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    hyperbola1 month, 2 weeks ago

    The days when university scientists were sufficiently economically independent and motivated to provide honest assessments is unfortunately over. Too many of them are in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies.

    Perhaps the key sentence in this article is this one:

    """Rather than using drugs to treat depression and other mental health disorders..."""

    Keep in mind that the drug companies have been selling us dangerous, addicitive drugs that they KNEW were dangerous, but hid this from regulators.

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      hyperbola1 month, 2 weeks ago

      FDA Got Left Out on Paxil Risk Documents

      Litigation over GlaxoSmithKline's handling of information about the suicide risk from antidepressant Paxil has turned up some documents that say a lot about why the FDA often seems to be in the dark when problems with drugs surface.

      Buried in the documents was a strange exchange between lawyers suing Glaxo over Paxil and attorneys defending the company. The upshot: FDA may not even have known all the information to ask for about Paxil....

      http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/06/20/fda-got-...

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      CHAM1 month, 2 weeks ago

      Good Post Omarazam. What indeed is being held from the public in the medical field? Remember Thalidomide? How in the world could a drug so injurious to a fetus be released on an unsuspecting public?

      My bet is that in the Pharmaceutical circles mis-information and or no information is common.

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        Spadecaller1 month, 2 weeks ago

        Good therapy and sound treatment often are secondary to profitability. It appears the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies are given more care than the patients they administer. There remains a an integral flaw in finding an ethical bridge between capitalism and health care.

        Too often "profit" is the enemy of "cure." Dependence on medication is more attractive than research into medicines that cure or therapies that cirucumvent the use of pshycotropic medications. Most people who survive and recover from depression and other mental disorders do so because they find the will and those rare individuals who reject the standards currently promoted.

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            Mdiar1 month, 2 weeks ago

            The problem with talk therapy is that it only works if the person wants to recover. To often in cases of depression, the person doesn't believe it is possible... and thus, may only go through the motions for recovery. Medication is actually fairly effective at treating depression; however, talk therapy has the potential to be more effective in some situations. My opinion is that the pills do work... but maybe not as well and it can be very difficult to find the right combination of medications to get depression under control. Sadly, when it comes to mental disorders, all to often its a trial and error process to determine the medication that will work for you.

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              frappii1 month, 2 weeks ago

              Completely aggree with Mdiar! You can not help someone suffereing, well, from anything unless they are willing to help themselves! A study was done where they gave 50% of Depression sufferers Anti-depressants and the other 50% were given placebos. The 50% who took placebo pills were feeling better than the "guinea pigs" who werre given real anti-depressants

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                MurphyStout1 month, 2 weeks ago

                People should stay away from pharmaceuticals when the actual function and effect of the drug is unknown, this comes along with anti-depressants. People should instead practice change of lifestyles/diet. You'd be amazed what some exercise and a change of scenery can do for you.

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                  jordan111 month, 2 weeks ago

                  I agree with exercise which releases endorphins. Also the change of scenery. Something about getting out of your environment helps to get out of yourself.

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                  thoughtforsale1 month, 2 weeks ago

                  There are some very different ways, to get rid of a depession. CBT might be useful for most patients, but some profit much more from chemical treatment or a therapy with artificial light. Even writing or painting seem to be very helpful to get out of the mental "black hole". There should not be any official preferences that make it nearly impossible for the suffering individual to decide on her/his own, what is the right way out of the disease. Besides, there will no longer be any successful research in the treatment of mental disorders, if the money stays reserved for CBT as the only method accepted!

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                    slate1 month, 2 weeks ago

                    Though pharmaceuticals cost way too much money; we do have to realize that most of the drugs are beneficial and the costs to get them to market with all the required studies and such costs mega bucks. If we could find a way to streamline the process and maybe lower costs it would help.

                    Medications for depression are touchy things, they are super addictive and expensive. Have you seen anyone on the drugs when they are out of them? Gawd, they act like crack addicts or something, to the point of physical withdraw.

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                      mktackabery1 month, 2 weeks ago

                      Gee, that's not too naive, or sterotypical of the people on drugs for mental disorders. "Most of the drugs are beneficial?" Have you looked at the track record of drugs for mental health lately? Besides suicides, you have: heart attack, diabetes, pancreatitis, serotonin syndrome, persistent pulmonary hypertension, mitral valve defects, cerebral palsy and other birth defects, gun violence, . . . I'm assuming you are hoping we keep granting huge blocks of tax dollars to pharmaceutical companies so they can keep the scary people locked up?

                      CBT has a higher failure rate usually because insurance companies don't finance ENOUGH CBT, but are quick to finance PLENTY of drugs. The one thing you are right about? It IS a touchy subject.

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                    joeblowe1 month, 2 weeks ago

                    Well, here's the truth about this: IF, I say IF, a person has an actual physiological chemical imbalance in their brain, TALKING is very unlikely to correct it. The root CAUSE of a person's depression needs to be carefully discovered before deciding for sure that ANY treatment option is suitable. This may, in fact, involve some 'talking', but that 'talking' is diagnostic, not therapeutic.

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                      TrueProgressive1 month, 2 weeks ago

                      Hey, hey Slate, little touchy today? Gone off your meds?

                      Look, psychotropics are nothing more than emotional novocain. Just like post op patients are given morphine to ease the physical pain, people who are in emotional pain benefit from so-called "antidepressants" because they are effective in relieving the pain. But, just as morphine doesn't cure the cause of the physical pain, "antidepressants" don't cure anything, emotional or physical. In fact, just like the well known opiates eventually mess up the brain, so do antidepressants. Read books by Peter Breggin, MD and William Glasser, MD on this. Someone who exhibits profound sadness, which is all that "depression" is, is not suffering from any biological brain abnormality. In fact, the person's brain is working just fine. The sadness the person exhibits is the mind's trying to rationalize the life the person believes he or she is experiencing, and what that person expected life would be like.

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                        slate1 month, 2 weeks ago

                        Hey, hey Slate, little touchy today? Gone off your meds?

                        Yeah I didn't take my asprin which is required from the headache that goobers like you cause,,,,,

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                        TrueProgressive1 month, 2 weeks ago

                        [Continuing] The key point of the article is Professor Cooper's addition, "More important is the client's level of motivation. After that, the key ingredient seems to be the quality of the therapeutic relationship, with warm, understanding, trustworthy therapists having the best results." Exactly. Someone who is in profound sadness believes life has abandoned them. Profound sadness leaves the sufferer feeling very, very unloved. Remember, the profound sadness a person exhibits is ALWAYS rational WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE PERSON'S LIFE, even if, outside that life, the sadness appears irrational. (I have to use caps since I can't underline.) A loving, trustworthy therapeutic relationship aims to reveal the source of the sadness within the person's life, re-educate the sufferer's emotional mind into more functional ways of looking at the world, and give the sufferer a taste of acceptance and love.

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                          TrueProgressive1 month, 2 weeks ago

                          [Continuing] This is why CBT has some value. It aims to re-educate the sufferer into accepting more functional ways of cognitively reacting to the world; i.e., if one learns to think "they're relly not out to get me," fear will subside, making one less anxious and sad.

                          But CBT has its limits. First, since it's a re-training of mind and emotions, the effort must be sustained, and it's sometimes very long. Finally, the early emotional trauma the person suffered may make impossible the re-training of his or her mind. This inability to predict results diminishes CBT's value to HMO's and other American care providers. Interactive therapy is regarded as expensive, "touchy/feely" and not amenable to the accountant's measurements of effectiveness. In contrast, pushing drugs is cheap to the HMO, appears to have immediate effectiveness, and appears "medical" and "clinical." And, in addition, is obscenely profitable to the drug companies.

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                            TrueProgressive1 month, 2 weeks ago

                            Slate, I think your brain needs alot more than aspirin. And, you might want to limit the booze.

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                              slate1 month, 2 weeks ago

                              I don't drink except on rare ocassion or do drugs,,, what's your drug of choice and your excuse?

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