Do Antidepressants Work?

[mountaineer]

Do Antidepressants Work?
Depression may be a functional signal—and that view may give patients hope.
Posted January 27, 2025 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Key points

    In her new book, psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff examines the popular belief that antidepressants "work."
    Among many other factors, she points out that most studies do not consider the “amplified placebo” effect.
    Perhaps it is time to see depression as a meaningful signal rather than a brain disorder.

In the 1980s, people generally thought of depression as a meaningful response to a crisis. A job loss. A divorce. Struggling to fit in at school. The angst of realizing life didn’t turn out as you’d hoped. (Indeed, some evidence suggests that up to 80% of episodes of depression are responses to negative life events.)

During the 1990s, partly owing to psychiatrists, advocacy groups, and the pharmaceutical industry, our cultural beliefs about depression shifted. We began seeing depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain, a disease like any other. As President Biden recently put the point, “I don’t know the difference between breaking your arm and having a mental breakdown. It’s health.” ...

In her new book, Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth, University College London psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff critically examines this popular idea.  ...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-biology-of-human-nature/202501/do-antidepressants-work

[mountaineer]

Christina Buttons
@buttonslives
For 40 years, psychiatry, aligned with Big Pharma, has pushed the myth that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain—that can be corrected by antidepressants. No evidence supports the serotonin theory. It's not a biomedical condition. People are being misled.

8:59 AM · Jan 27, 2025

[berdie]

Not sure I agree. I think in some instances there are true chemical imbalances that cause debilitating depression. But in most cases it is  a reaction to life.

I have known people in both categories. I consider myself blessed to have never having to deal with either.

[mountaineer]

I really don't know, berdie. A family member is chronically depressed, but to me his problems seem to be dealing with real life after having been overly coddled by his parents. In other words, refusing to grow up looks a lot like depression.

Many have observed how "overprescribed" anti-depressants are in the U.S., but I know from personal experience some of those are for chronic pain patients who need help getting some sleep, and not with depression problems at all.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Probably... they have given them to fish via the water cycle system (people peeing out antidepressents they consumed) and have observed that fish are less likely to avoid potential predators.