Author Topic: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch  (Read 1701 times)

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Offline Witchyjoshy

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The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« on: March 07, 2012, 01:20:16 pm »
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irving-kirsch-phd/antidepressants-the-emper_b_442205.html

I could post a segment from it, but to be honest, I don't want to color anyone's perceptions about this article, considering my own bias.

Nor do I want to present my own bias because then I might color other people's opinions.

So, forgive me, but I wish to delay my own opinion on this because I want to see other opinions, first.

It's not a long read, just an FYI :V
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Offline Old Viking

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Re: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2012, 07:17:56 pm »
This is depressing.
I am an old man, and I've seen many problems, most of which never happened.

Offline JohnE

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Re: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2012, 10:38:55 pm »
This is depressing.
Don't worry. That's just a placebo effect.

Offline m52nickerson

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Re: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2012, 08:11:04 am »
I think it should be looked into further.  I'm not going to say he is right, but if what he found was true it does need to be looked at.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ~Macbeth

Offline Sylvana

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Re: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2012, 09:24:09 am »
I found this in the comments and I think its relevant to this discussion.

Quote
As a psychiatrist having practiced many, many years:

Anti-depressants do not work when they are given to people who do not have depressive episode. If your whole life sucks, anti-depressants ain't gonna work a miracle cure. studies which chose patients patients based on inventories and structured interviews end up enrolling non-depressed patients. This results in an apparent lack of clear usefulness of anti-depressants.

I personally believe that anti-depressants are over prescribed. I even remember my previous psychologist wanting to up the dosage of the meds I was on over small depressing events in my life. It was one of the reasons why I left him for a different doctor. Anti-depressant drugs work, I know they work from me using them. Of course this can always just be labeled off as the placebo effect, but anti-depressant drugs work chemically on the serotonin levels in the brain, this is fact, its verifiable physically. However the effect this has on someone depends on their individual chemical balances. As such not all anti-depressants work the same on all people. However, anti-depressants will have a bearably noticeable effect on someone who does not suffer from a chemical imbalance. Regardless though, they will still have an effect because external facts like current mood, physical health and nutrition affect your brain chemistry. So due to external factors like your life sucking, you may temporary suffer from a reduction of serotonin in the brain, and anti-depressants will affect that, but the effect will be far less noticeable.

In people who have a family history of mood-swings and depression, anti-depressants are like miracle pills. These are the people who have a genetic predisposition to have incorrect brain chemical balances. For people like this, using anti-depressants makes their lives manageable for the first time ever. Their moods stabilize and they can function as normal people in society without any problems. They suddenly because capable of maintaining long term relationships and start excelling at work. These are the people who truly need anti-depressants, and there are more of them than one would think.

On the other hand, severe traumas like loosing a loved one, causes one to undergo essentially a chemical trauma too. The severity of the event or trauma can dramatically affect ones brain chemistry. This often leads the people suffering like this to have completely uncontrollable moods swings and depression. At times like these anti-depressants can work on a temporary basis to assist the person to cope with their emotions enough to continue living and functioning until they work through the problems. However, in situations like this a risk is posed by prescribing too large a dose which has the effect of completely neutering and suppressing all emotions. While some see this as a massive improvement in the persons well being it does not allow the emotions central to the trauma to be worked though and actually hinders rehabilitation.

In summary, too many doctors prescribe anti-depressants when they shouldn't. A good number of them also prescribe too much thinking it will solve the problem by killing all emotion. For most people who are not suffering from a severe chemical imbalance, they really would be better off with a placebo. However, the drugs themselves do work, and they definitely help a great many people when diagnosed and prescribed correctly.

Offline StallChaser

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Re: The Emperor's New Drugs - Irving Kirsch
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2012, 05:19:59 am »
A big problem is how drugs are marketed.  Drug companies shouldn't be allowed to advertise directly to consumers that have no idea what's going on.  The whole point of having a doctor prescribe drugs is to have a professional who has a fundamental understanding of how they work.  We don't need people bitching about how they got the wrong medication because this other one has a much better commercial.  Antidepressents don't just magically make depression go away, but you wouldn't know that watching most of their commercials.