“Desperate” was the word that kept rolling off the lips of the people sitting in my living room. We were an odd bunch—a former Methodist minister and president of several colleges, a former executive television producer turned academic, a leadership professor, a dance teacher, a housewife, a licensed therapist, a business owner, a speech therapist, many…
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Tom noticed that he feels anxious most of his day. He can’t really put his finger on why, but tells me it’s an overall feeling. Tom suffers from Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
When someone feels a pervasive sense of anxiety on a regular basis, it can affect their work and health. One of the contributors to this feeling of overall anxiety…
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Waking up to the news of another mass shooting means there are families in grief, traumatized survivors and parents who are trying to make sense of this to their children and themselves. What do you say to your children when these horrific events happen?
Overall, turn off the news and limit exposure. Less exposure is better. Most of us will struggle with grief, a loss of a sense of safety, increased perceptions of threat, and challenges related to injustice.
Before you say anything,…
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Kim and Jack have worked together now for the past five years. Sometimes, in a joke, Jack refers to her as his “work wife.” They spend most of their day together, work on projects and go to lunch everyday. They know each other very well and lately have shared intimate talk about their marriages. Even they admit, they are probably closer to each other than…
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If you struggle with depression, your physician may recommend you take an antidepressant. The question that often comes up is how effective are antidepressants?
A new mega analysis looked to answer this question, especially concerning the most commonly prescribed antidepressants -the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). What they found was that compared to those people taking placebos, those patients without early adverse events, reduced their report of depressive symptoms.
In general, SSRIs for the treatment of depression work, but not for every patient. The take away message was to not deter patients for taking these drugs for depression. However, this question of effectiveness is not without controversy.
In 2012, psychologist Irving Kirsch, PhD, associate director of the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts told 60 minutes that there were no clinical differences in the effectiveness of antidepressants vs placebo in depression.
The American Psychiatry Association (APA) made a strong counter statement to the message in the TV broadcast, feeling Dr. Kirsch’s message was harmful to people taking or considering the use of antidepressants.
But Dr. Kirsch is not convinced that this study has enough significant results to say these drugs are effective. He says that a patient should look at the side-effect profile and health risks and then use the safest of the alternative treatments available. For Dr. Kirsch that doesn’t necessarily mean using an SSRI. His conclusion? The positive effect of this study is so small that he considers it clinically insignificant.
So the battle continues. Is the use of antidepressants more of a placebo effect in terms of patients seeing improvement or do the drugs work well against the fight of depression.