More on anti-depressants

Topic: Depression

There's an article out in the British Medical Journal arguing that anti-depressants don't provide any "meaningful benefit".

As I recently wrote, that was my experience with them.

One of the authors said:

I am skeptical as to whether there is a biochemical syndrome of depression despite the portrayal by the drug companies and some psychiatric literature.

I would agree with that statement. But she goes on to say:

[depression] should be dealt with without drugs, because it's something people need to learn to deal with themselves.

It's my opinion that the entire way that doctors think about depression is wrong. Given the wide range of presentations that it has, that it's known to result from several diseases, and the fact that some drugs work for some people but not for others, I think that depression is more accurately viewed as a life-threatening symptom, not as a disease in itself. If that's true, then there are many unknown or under-diagnosed disorders which have depression as a symptom.