Michael Anestis of Psychotherapy Brown Bag has launched his new channel of videos on Utube . In the first video Michael discusses the recently published study in JAMA that calls into question the utility of antidepressants for individuals with mild to severe depression.
Brown bag seminars are informal lunchtime meetings held by researchers to update their colleagues on recent research findings. Psychotherapy Brown Bag attempts to serve a similar function, posting new information around lunchtime and hoping to foster intellectual conversations about research topics in an informal setting. Future videos will discuss more specific material regarding mental illness, psychotherapy, and related topics. This is a great blog and definitely one for your bookmarks.
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An analysis of randomized trials indicates that compared with placebo, the magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medications varies with the severity of depressive symptoms, and may provide little benefit for patients with mild or moderate depression, but appear to provide substantial benefit for patients with very severe depression, according to an article in the January 6 issue of JAMA. [continue reading…]
The recent top 10 anti-depressants list is the most searched item currently on this blog. So the following should be of interest to many. Prospect magazine recently featured article The Drugs Don’t Work The article looks at Irvine Kirsch’s crusade to challenge the establishment by questioning whether anti-depressants are any better than placebo.
Kirsch has set out to challenge the antidepressant establishment. He claims that the SSRIs only appear to be effective because patients believe that they are going to work. “It’s placebo effect,” says Kirsch. In other words, the SSRIs are no better than blood-letting, snake oil, or any of the nostrums peddled before the era of modern medicine. Of course we all use placebos in everyday life, from kissing a child’s bruise better to taking a glass of brandy for a cold. I know a woman who saves red Smarties in a jar and takes one when she has a headache; she swears that it works even though she’s conscious that it’s placebo. Yet one would not want to build a health strategy for depression on such flimsy efficacy. Source:Prospect
 This week The New York Times  featured an interesting article on the growing number of people who have been taking antidepressants since childhood.
“I’ve grown up on medication,” my patient Julie told me recently. “I don’t have a sense of who I really am without it.”
