Posted by harryp on June 13, 2004, at 0:12:57
In reply to Am I in Denial? Complete Treatment for Depression?, posted by Simcha on June 12, 2004, at 23:45:22
Maybe I can help. I have been getting analytic therapy (from a trained psychoanalyst/MD) for years, and the best thing I can say about it is that it is truly great education.
I respond strongly to other people's emotions, and learning more about my own emotional reactions has make me much more effective as a friend and in understanding other people's (and my) motivations. Frequently, when people are mean or offensive, I can figure out why, and realize that it has nothing to do with me at all.
However it hasn't done squat for my chronic, often totally debilitating depression, which has made a train wreck out of my educational, personal, and professional goals for over a decade!
Last year I went into "end-stage" so-to-speak, and scared my doc into offering a MAOI (huh? Aren't those the awful old drugs that kill you on the first dose?). To his and my surprise, the blasted thing wiped out my depression almost completely with NO side effects worth mentioning! I'm back in grad school and life is definitely NOT wonderful, but I can get up in the morning, so at least there's hope.
In short, therapy and meds can wind up being equally essential. I don't think I could have survived without either. The therapy made me stronger, but you can't beat depression with strength. I don't know if I'll need to be on meds for life or not; the brain never stops changing in response to the environment, and when my life gets better I may be less suceptible to depression.
So you should do what works. Your profs are right--your condition is very serious, but it sounds like you are dealing with it admirably. Psychoanalysis can sometimes truly "cure" things (like mild personality disorders and neuroticism) but expecting it to make severe depression vanish permanently is probably not reasonable.
In summary, I think anyone who does therapy could benefit from analytic therapy for its own sake, but you definitely shouldn't expect it to make your medication unnecessary.
poster:harryp
thread:356230
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040608/msgs/356232.html