Anti-depressants: do they really help?
Drugs can often suppress underlying problems, only to find when the patient stops taking the anti-depressant drug, they become depressed. There is a higher relapse rate from medication than therapy. Anti-depressant medication cannot teach coping skills, problem solving skills, resolve interpersonal issues, or protect against reoccurrence of depressive episodes.It would be unfair to say that all people do not get relief from medication, and in some instances is definitely required. Older medications such as tricyclics (TCA’s) monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI’s) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) such as Prozac, Paroxetine and Seroxat. All these drugs have many side effects, everyone is an individual, and one drug may not work well, where another might.
Unfortunately most GPs, tend to think that depression to be biological, and therefore the need for drug therapy. Scientific findings indicate that depression is caused in three general areas, biology, sociology and psychology, and within these three categories there are many variables that play an important part. Therefore these factors need to be considered in every cas
