Posted by simcha on September 9, 2007, at 2:01:10
In reply to Re: News - Antidepressants Vindicated?, posted by sam123 on September 9, 2007, at 0:43:03
This is just logical. Depressed people are more prone to commit suicide. Anti-depressants work for many depressed people. Thus anti-depressants reduce the risk of suicide.
I often get tired of hearing about how "bad" psychopharmacology is. I think that the stigma attached to actually identifying and treating mental illness is our main obstacle to effective treatment. The drugs themselves are tools in our arsenal to help us combat depression and other mental illnesses. Until we as a society start to recognize mental illness as what it is, a serious group of illnesses that can be treated, people will reject treatment because they believe that mental illness doesn't exist, drugs cause illness, and if one is labelled as having a mental illness then one is somehow less of a person.
That's a giant societal problem. Drugs are only one tool in our arsenal. For depression the medicine works best when combined with psychotherapy. This is a fact. And, if you do nothing to treat people (including children) who are suffering from depression you are neglecting them to the increased possibility of suicide.
As a mental health professional I think the black box warnings are detrimental to getting needed treament for people who are depressed. The black box warnings were politically motivated and not based on hard medical science. When will people finally accept that mental illness is like any other illness? When will we as a society force insurance companies and health systems to treat mental illness with parity?
poster:simcha
thread:781684
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070831/msgs/781748.html