No wonder therapy doesn't work.

[lionetta12]

The biggest problem is that so many of them believe this b.s. If they started helping people with how to treat loneliness- how to get good friends, family relationship, and a relationship, they could really help people- they need to at least try to make a science out of this, plus the other listed causes. Most research is wasted because they are not even trying to solve the right problems.

In regards to loneliness, I do address this with anyone I help in a therapeutic setting. It's usually one of the main reasons behind why the people I help daily are depressed. I focus a lot on giving them advice on how to maintain their existing and on how to form new strong meaningful connections with others. The main issue I face is that a lot of people I help want to fix the social aspects of their life and their relationships, without putting in the work. This does not go for everyone, but for some and I understand it, it can be draining to do all of this when you're quite depressed and while you feel that you're struggling with basic things like hygiene or eating on top of feeling lonely. They need some time and I respect that, I keep encouraging them to work on it and we discuss it often as that is what they wish. Depression is a complex issue and it takes time, care and patience to improve it or handle it.

 

[conflagration]

Antidepressants numbs down emotions, so they became a little bit more tolerable. They don't treat the root cause of depression (maybe except some rare cases when something is wrong at biochemical level). They are surely over prescribed, and they can have horrible withdrawals which most doctor deny even exist (they will tell it is not withdrawal it is just your depression coming back).

 

[d3c96524be95]

they will tell it is not withdrawal it is just your depression coming back

In my experience, this also holds for *any* adverse event of antidepressants. Depression is the perfect scapegoat. Always had to stop medications on my own because doctors would never acknowledge that adverse events were unbearable and due to their treatments (and that their treatment didn't help in any way on top of that).

But withdrawal symptoms are even more relevant because by definition they occur after the treatment is stopped, so there's basically no economical incentive to study them. They're irrelevant to prove a treatment efficacy and they don't occur during the treatment, so it's just easier to not bother and ignore them. I assume that's also why lots of doctors seem unaware of them or minimize them, they're confusing absence of evidence with evidence of absence. And they believe it'll be okay to reduce posology progressively in two years, "when things will get better" anyways.

 

[Someone123]

In regards to loneliness, I do address this with anyone I help in a therapeutic setting. It's usually one of the main reasons behind why the people I help daily are depressed. I focus a lot on giving them advice on how to maintain their existing and on how to form new strong meaningful connections with others. The main issue I face is that a lot of people I help want to fix the social aspects of their life and their relationships, without putting in the work. This does not go for everyone, but for some and I understand it, it can be draining to do all of this when you're quite depressed and while you feel that you're struggling with basic things like hygiene or eating on top of feeling lonely. They need some time and I respect that, I keep encouraging them to work on it and we discuss it often as that is what they wish. Depression is a complex issue and it takes time, care and patience to improve it or handle it.

I think people are willing to put in work ehn the are able to get some results. In my case what I needed years ago was to have relationships borken down to see what I was getting from them and what I still needed. Some important questions would be- is there anyone you can talk to about probelms who tries to help? Some people around me pretended to care but were just the opposite. LIsting people's names, going over interactios with people, talking about how you connect with peopel and meet new people- if people work on this at least they have a chance. Disucussing- what is your process for getting to know people like, how can you tell if they really care or not, etc. breaking this down as you can. discussingv relatinships with family, what are your interactions like. it is not easy, and the system sets up so many people to fail. putting people on meds sets them up for failure, since they have bad side effects oftentimes, and they don't treat the probelm.

We're easy on kickbacks and corruption accusations, however I really don't think they're the correct explanation to the fact that doctors do prescribe so much antidepressant against depressions. I reckon their rationale is way simpler than that, though I'm pretty sure most doctors highly overestimate how efficient antidepressants are against depression (and underestimate how placebo is efficient against most depression).

It doesn't need to be kickbacks, the appointments cost a lot. I was in a hospital for a few weeks many years ago- everyone there said I didn't need to be there, I was cheerful and positive, but I was at high risk for ctb because home life was hell- of course once this was removed I felt better. But I know what my doctor did- he put as many people in the hospital as possible and made them sign off that he saw them three times a week for a half hour, even though this never happened. He billed huge amounts every week foir work that was never done. I do believe there are good people who are trying to help, some psychologists try to help. In my case my psycho9logist didn't even try to help, she talked about herself and her family- I kept going back out of loneliness I guess, I should have switched doctors. One ripoff after another.

 

[FuneralCry]

Therapy is just a scam designed to profit off people's suffering, this is the reason why therapy is pushed so much as being a 'solution', as the industry needs to make money. No, the reality is that life is simply terrible and words cannot remove the real suffering and problems that people go through. Being suicidal isn't the 'mental illness', instead I see wanting to die as being a rational response to existing in this horrific world.

 

[jodes2]

Therapy is just a scam designed to profit off people's suffering, this is the reason why therapy is pushed so much as being a 'solution', as the industry needs to make money. No, the reality is that life is simply terrible and words cannot remove the real suffering and problems that people go through. Being suicidal isn't the 'mental illness', instead I see wanting to die as being a rational response to existing in this horrific world.

Classic "FuneralCry" response

I don't know if I have a chemical imbalance, but there's definitely something wrong with my brain. Anhedonia is a bitch. I'm always procrastinating, even with things I enjoy the most. I struggle to get into anything. Social anxiety is a bitch too. Just don't enjoy social interactions given the anxiety in long conversations. I can only handle a short back and forth. No medications in 25 years have ever made a noticeable difference to anything. Therapy has made very little difference. They just state the obvious or the unhelpful. But maybe it all helps some people. What gets me depressed is boredom, tedium, arguments with my gf and loneliness. Therapy can't really help with anhedonia. It hasn't helped with arguments with my gf. It hasn't stopped me avoiding social interactions. I don't know why I'm less suicidal than I used to be, but it wasn't medication or therapy. I'm just broken without any real fix. All I want to do is take drugs to escape, but I haven't had anything good in like 20 years. Drugs are the only thing that make me feel good, not empty or broken, unfulfilled. I have no life. Haven't done in 20 years. Just existing.

 

[d3c96524be95]

It doesn't need to be kickbacks, the appointments cost a lot. I was in a hospital for a few weeks many years ago- everyone there said I didn't need to be there, I was cheerful and positive, but I was at high risk for ctb because home life was hell- of course once this was removed I felt better. But I know what my doctor did- he put as many people in the hospital as possible and made them sign off that he saw them three times a week for a half hour, even though this never happened. He billed huge amounts every week foir work that was never done. I do believe there are good people who are trying to help, some psychologists try to help. In my case my psycho9logist didn't even try to help, she talked about herself and her family- I kept going back out of loneliness I guess, I should have switched doctors. One ripoff after another.

In my country, they put people who want to CTB in public psychatric wards and force them to take medications (usually antidepressants and antipsychotics) against their will. I know for sure they will do that for zero financial compensation (their salary don't change whether they force you or not, they are not paid for appointments but at the hour they spend there (which they spend anyways), and public psychatric wards are already at capacity anyways). They're genuinely convinced they are actually helping people by doing so. I myself went through forced treatments, imprisonment and torture 3 times in psychatric wards, but I highly doubt the motivation of my persecutors were primarily mercantile. It was mostly based on cultural beliefs ("dying/CTB is bad", "life is good", …), fallacies/misconceptions ("your mind is too altered, you can obviously no longer think for yourself", "antidepressants help in most cases", "this will at least avoid the worse", …) and following procedures (they don't want to be held accountable or feel responsible if somebody CTBs, so they just follow blindly what medical authorities of the country recommend, regardless on the scientific background or on whether or not it's in the patient's best interest; but we can at least agree that it's more about them than it is about patients). Though I can imagine the situation being very different in the US or depending on practicians.

 

[AnonymousS]

The following article about depression in quanta magazine shows exactly why the majority of therapists don't help- it talks about about levels of seratonin and other "chemical imbalances" causing depression- totally ridiculous. The main causes of depression are not enough strong, caring relationships with other people, financial problems, physical health problems/physical health damage, and addictions. It's not due to chemical imbalances. Being raised in a caring, competent way is the best antidepressant there is- if you don't get this a lot of damage needs to be repaired to help people connect with others. Loneliness is the number one cause of depression, and no pill fixes this- all of these people in this field are paid so much and most accomplish so little because they are not treating the real causes of depression.

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think | Quanta Magazine

Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease.

www.quantamagazine.org

"Therapists" cannot prescribe medication. Also it's not just serotonin these drugs affect, they also if they start to help you commonly take 4-6 weeks before a reasonbly good effect is seen, it's something to do with the adaptive changes in the brain.

 

[Someone123]

"Therapists" cannot prescribe medication. Also it's not just serotonin these drugs affect, they also if they start to help you commonly take 4-6 weeks before a reasonbly good effect is seen, it's something to do with the adaptive changes in the brain.

It depends who you call a therapist- i just searched the definition of therapist on google and examples given were psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and a few others. Psychiatrists can prescribe medications and they are generally considered to be therapists. Some of them will also try to help you with conversation, but they mostly focus on medications. But overall point I am making is that if a person becomes depressed to due financial problems or loneliness or both, pills won't help- what this person needs is money and people who care about them, and pills do not treat the problems causing the depression.

 

[AnonymousS]

It depends who you call a therapist- i just searched the definition of therapist on google and examples given were psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and a few others. Psychiatrists can prescribe medications and they are generally considered to be therapists. Some of them will also try to help you with conversation, but they mostly focus on medications.

Ok, i have never heard a psychiatrist or a medical doctor called a therapist.

 

[TransilvanianHunger]

Particularly in countries like the US and UK, we prioritize treating what we see as "individual failures" rather than systemic ones.

This is one of the main failures of mental health treatment in the West—a reductionist and mechanistic view of mental health issues, and an obsession with "fixing" the individual as if they lived in a vacuum. Of course, you can't expect a psychologist or a psychiatrist to solve the housing crisis, poverty wages, the inhumane systems that drive our societies, all of which are likely contributors to these ailments of the mind. As my therapist put it, the therapist is expected to treat the patient as a system, not as a human being.

Overall, I believe it is important to acknowledge the various shortcomings and failures of modern therapeutic practice. There is an over-reliance on medication and not enough focus on the human. Mental health services are overloaded and provide pathetically bad attention, if they do provide anything at all. But the wholesale dismissal of therapy—an option that can work for people in certain situations—in favour of pure despondence and despair seems entirely unproductive.

 

[AnonymousS]

This is one of the main failures of mental health treatment in the West—a reductionist and mechanistic view of mental health issues, and an obsession with "fixing" the individual as if they lived in a vacuum. Of course, you can't expect a psychologist or a psychiatrist to solve the housing crisis, poverty wages, the inhumane systems that drive our societies, all of which are likely contributors to these ailments of the mind. As my therapist put it, the therapist is expected to treat the patient as a system, not as a human being.

Overall, I believe it is important to acknowledge the various shortcomings and failures of modern therapeutic practice. There is an over-reliance on medication and not enough focus on the human. Mental health services are overloaded and provide pathetically bad attention, if they do provide anything at all. But the wholesale dismissal of therapy—an option that can work for people in certain situations—in favour of pure despondence and despair seems entirely unproductive.

Yes i agree, you can be given the best treatments available, highly trained, professional and caring staff etc, but if you have to go back to an environment that is toxic to you, and you're isolated for example, it's going to fail. They talk about the bio-psycho-social model here in the UK, which is what should happen in theory. However like most countries mental health services here are extremely poorly funded. It can take ages to access any therapy unless it's maybe CBT.

 

[blackroseRM]

Antidepressants numbs down emotions, so they became a little bit more tolerable. They don't treat the root cause of depression (maybe except some rare cases when something is wrong at biochemical level). They are surely over prescribed, and they can have horrible withdrawals which most doctor deny even exist (they will tell it is not withdrawal it is just your depression coming back).

I've never had a psychiatrist tell me that withdrawals weren't real. Quite the opposite. All have warned me of withdrawal effects and gone out of their way to tell me specifically what the withdrawals of each medication will feel like, their intensity, what I should do if it happens, how I can avoid it if my refills somehow lapse, etc. I've been taking some form of antidepressant since I was 16 (I'm now 33) and every doctor, psychiatrist or otherwise, has given me very detailed explanations of withdrawals and side effects and has not once brushed off my telling them when they occur. I've absolutely had doctors tell me that my pain isn't real, that my conditions aren't real, that it's "all in my head," that I'm making things up, etc, but when it came to meds they're prescribing me, they have managed to be forthcoming and honest.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

In regards to loneliness, I do address this with anyone I help in a therapeutic setting.

If you're willing to share, what kind of clinical work do you do?

 

[conflagration]

I've never had a psychiatrist tell me that withdrawals weren't real. Quite the opposite. All have warned me of withdrawal effects and gone out of their way to tell me specifically what the withdrawals of each medication will feel like, their intensity, what I should do if it happens, how I can avoid it if my refills somehow lapse, etc. I've been taking some form of antidepressant since I was 16 (I'm now 33) and every doctor, psychiatrist or otherwise, has given me very detailed explanations of withdrawals and side effects and has not once brushed off my telling them when they occur. I've absolutely had doctors tell me that my pain isn't real, that my conditions aren't real, that it's "all in my head," that I'm making things up, etc, but when it came to meds they're prescribing me, they have managed to be forthcoming and honest.

I wonder in what country you live in? I have polar opposite experience.

 

[blackroseRM]

I wonder in what country you live in? I have polar opposite experience.

I'm in the US, and in a very rural area with not much access to any kind of good/quality care whatsoever. My medical journey has been very long, rife with abuse and neglect, and I'm still struggling immensely due in large part to those things, but doctors have always given me warnings about the medications they give me. I'm also on quite a few meds at this point, but even from the first medication they were diligent about warnings of side effects and withdrawals.

 

[disillusion]

blackroseRM said:

Well, the article isn't wrong. Chemical imbalances are the cause of depression.

I do think the article is wrong. Let's say a person has a financial catastrophe and is on the verge of homelessness and then they become depresssed to to this- is a chemical imbalance the cause of the depression? Of course not. The cause is financial, and the solution is financial- no pills can be a solution.

I think some people who are in financial trouble do get on medication and get some energy to do something about it and reverse it too. Of course it does not work for everyone but for people medication actually works( theres gotta be. ? Cannot be 0) they r abit motivated to get on their feet

 

[Dot]

I.m.o depressn = nt necssrly an illnss itslf bt a secndary symtpm of somethng els happnng

= cn b causd b/ currnt evnts & evirnmnt or hw sme1s past intercts wth thr currnt envirnmnt -- e.g sme1 mght b lnely bcse trma thy r carryng affcts hw thy cn cre8 & kp rlatnshps whch thn rsults in lonlinss

1 problm wth westrn approches & thy thy fcus on th/ brain whle ignorng tht thre r whle bodly systms whch wrk 2wrds a persns emotnl st8

Alao talkng thrpies cn hlp @ workng thru a persns issus & help thm brk dwn historcl emotnl barriers frm childhd & beynd whch mght caus issus bt thy r nt alwys effctve @ resolvng trma -- jst manging symptms

Thre r othr apprches whch r showng postve rsults in ths area sch as holistc apprches & somatic apprches -- an Xample of anothr perspctve on depressn = belw --

Depression Treatment | Somatic Experiencing® Therapist | Portland, OR

Depression treatment in Portland, OR. Somatic Experiencing® may help you with trouble concentrating, remembering things, making decisions, feeling empty.

www.oregonsomatictherapy.com

Why a Bottom-Up Approach to Trauma Therapy is So Powerful - Brickel and Associates LLC

A bottom-up approach especially helpful for trauma survivors. It means noticing feelings that spark thoughts of danger, and working from the brain stem up.

brickelandassociates.com

I.m.o therpy = nt a scambt = only hlps a certn sub-set of ppl bcse thre r othr issus whch cnnt b resolvd thrgh talkng & medcatn only -- mentl hlth treatmnt = stll in dark ages

 

[LastFlowers]

I'm in the US, and in a very rural area with not much access to any kind of good/quality care whatsoever. My medical journey has been very long, rife with abuse and neglect, and I'm still struggling immensely due in large part to those things, but doctors have always given me warnings about the medications they give me. I'm also on quite a few meds at this point, but even from the first medication they were diligent about warnings of side effects and withdrawals.

I went through withdrawal after being taken off meds cold turkey (and simultaneously being put on different ones) while in the hospital setting..
I was told that it was impossible to experience withdrawal from psych meds, to my face..when the symptoms were so bad that I could hardly walk. Had that extreme restless feeling while also being too tired to move and yet I could not sleep either.
They still denied that withdrawal symptoms could happen.
They basically accused me of putting on an act even though the records showed they yanked one set of meds and replaced it with another just like that..which would inevitably end in the experience I was having.
(I didn't even call it anything, because I didn't understand what was happening..but they kept telling me what I was dealing with was not possible, that withdrawal symptoms can only happen from narcotics and such.)

I was never warned of any side effects for any of these medications either. Not once.
I remember when one of them temporarily caused me to need prescription lenses in order to read a book. I went from slightly nearsighted to seeing complete blurriness close up.
Luckily that went away when I stopped the med but I'm shocked by your experience with the supposed diligence of your own doctors.
I've had the complete opposite experience.
(Haven't touched a psych medication in years though. No thank you. Never again.)

 

[blackroseRM]

I went through withdrawal after being taken off meds cold turkey (and simultaneously being put on different ones) while in the hospital setting..
I was told that it was impossible to experience withdrawal from psych meds, to my face..when the symptoms were so bad that I could hardly walk. Had that extreme restless feeling while also being too tired to move and yet I could not sleep either.
They still denied that withdrawal symptoms could happen.
They basically accused me of putting on an act even though the records showed they yanked one set of meds and replaced it with another just like that..which would inevitably end in the experience I was having.
(I didn't even call it anything, because I didn't understand what was happening..but they kept telling me what I was dealing with was not possible, that withdrawal symptoms can only happen from narcotics and such.)

I was never warned of any side effects for any of these medications either. Not once.
I remember when one of them temporarily caused me to need prescription lenses in order to read a book. I went from slightly nearsighted to seeing complete blurriness close up.
Luckily that went away when I stopped the med but I'm shocked by your experience with the supposed diligence of your own doctors.
I've had the complete opposite experience.
(Haven't touched a psych medication in years though. No thank you. Never again.)

What you experienced in the hospital doesn't shock me in the least. My worst medical experiences have been in hospitals. I have also gone into withdrawal form medications because the hospital staff neglected to follow my medication regiment despite them being in the same network as my doctor and confirming my med list multiple times. Fortunately I recognized the symptoms immediately and told them I was going into withdrawal, and had family members there to advocate for and with me to impress upon the nurses that my lack of meds was causing what I was feeling, not an after effect from my surgery. For someone to say "withdrawals only happen from narcotics" is such a ridiculous statement I don't even have words. Particularly for psychoactive medications, you have to slowly taper off of them by reducing the dose and slowly ease on to the new medication. I've switched meds enough times to know. It's not just SSRIs that have withdrawals though! Lots of medications have terrible effects if you suddenly stop taking them for any reason! This is common knowledge (or so I thought!) Every new story I hear about medical mistreatment here disappoints me but no longer surprises me.

 

[The Abyss]

Ya ever stop to think maybe this is so as it's easier to prescribe meds for a "chemical imbalance" than resolving traumatic experiences with big pharma giving tons of donations to institutions that in turn are where ppl train to get their pieces of paper & thus are told meds = good.

 

[WorthlessTrash]

There are some things therapy cant help, and sure teaching coping skills can be effective as a band-aid, but that is just it. It's a band-aid on a wound that never heals. Eventually, the band-aid can't fend off those recurring feelings.