"Devine, James" wrote:
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> as I understand it, anti-depressants should be complemented with cognitive therapy. Depression involves a vicious circle in which being depressed (due to situational factors) leads to a paralysis of the mind and of behavior (due to biological factors) that makes one even more depressed. The medication (allegedly) deals with the biological basis for the depression, while cognitive therapy helps one develop the mind-set to engage in behaviors that make the situation better. The point is to create a virtuous circle.
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> The drug companies and many psychiatrists don't see it this way. They hope that the pill is the magic bullet which will solve the problem with no help from psychotherapy of any sort. This encourages the over-prescription of the pills, which feathers the nests of both the drug companies and the psychiatrists. But the over-prescription does not mean that they should never be prescribed. Some people really need them. Others are helped by them.
> Jim
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This is pretty much correct. They (or "they") still don't know as much about it as would be desirable. It was discovered several years ago that depression can cause the destruction of neurons in the hippocampus (hence the memory problems which often come with it). Some quite recent research revealed that taking ADs can prevent that destruction (and perhaps reverse it -- that is a quite new discovery also, that adults can generate new neurons). (MRI technology is leading to much greater knowledge of the brain 'in motion' as it were.) And I read just a week or two ago of some research that might be relevant to my problems. It was discovered that in some cases a single traumatic episode (specifically, I believe, an auto accident) could lead to depression. On xmas eve, 1936 (age six) my mother and I were a half mile from home (I attended the same elementary school she taught at, which held classes thru Dec. 24), she didn't see a car at a stop sign, it hit us, we went end over end, destroyed a cement culvert, ripped the engine out of the car sent it about 20 feet. When the noise stopped the windshield for some reason was still intact, and there was steam coming from the radiator. Responding to some recent stories of people trapped in a burning car, my mother hauled her foot back and that windshield simply disintegrated. As it happened, no really serious injuries (odd as hell with two totaled cars) except my face needed stitches. Anyhow, about 6 weeks later, while I was sitting in a parked car, a car slid on the ice and bumped us very, very gently. When my mother came out, I was crouched whimpering on the floor in the back seat. Perhaps????
Jim is certainly correct in any case that "situational" depression can lead to medical depression.
Carrol
P.S. A note on that _other_ kind of depression, The Depression of the 1930s. The car my mother wrecked had cost her $200 -- an 8-year old Whippet still in superb condition. Black and Yellow -- a really beautiful car. The car that replaced it was an 8-year old chevy, practically falling apart. And that first #200 car had cost her 2/5s of an annual wage. Her salary as a rural elementary school teacher was $55 a month for 9 months.