Depression

Like millions, I am sitting with the fact that one of the funniest people to grace the planet has died by his own hand. Robin Williams’ death has hit people of my generation, Generation X, especially hard. After all, his face flashed often across our childhood screens. Mork and Mindy episodes were a source of solace for me as a little girl, as I bounced around between foster homes and family members' homes, while my single mother cycled in and out of the state mental hospital, fighting to survive. I could laugh and say “nanu, nanu - shazbot” and "KO" and do the silly hand sign and forget for just a little while about living a life I didn’t ask for.

There's an interesting article in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.  It's called The Efficacy of Antidepressants on Overall Well-Being and Self-Reported Depression Symptom Severity in Youth: A Meta-Analysis. The authors concluded: "Though limited by a small number of trials, our analyses suggest that antidepressants offer little to no benefit in improving overall well-being among depressed children and adolescents." In the Discussion section of the paper, they stated, "We found no evidence that antidepressants offer any sort of clinically meaningful benefit for youth on self-report measures of depression, quality of life, global mental health, or parent reports of autonomy."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has released a meta-analysis “Evidence Report” of the studies into...

In a recent Ted Talk, “Depression is a Disease of Civilization.” professor Stephen Ilardi advances the thesis that depression is a disease of our modern lifestyle. As an example, Ilardi compares our modern culture to the Kaluli people — an indigenous tribe that lives in the highlands of New Guinea. When an anthopologist interviewed over 2,000 Kaluli, he found that only one person exhibited the symptoms of clinical depression, despite the fact the Kaluli are plagued by high rates of infant mortality, parasitic infection, and violent death. Yet, despite their harsh lives, the Kaluli do not experience depression as we know it.

Psychiatric Times has published a discussion of the research comparing the effectiveness of antidepressant medications under different conditions. “First, there seem to be no...

Examining the link between depression and loss of employment, a study by American researchers in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that cognitive therapy...

Greg Young, who leapt to his death from the top of Niagara Falls, "had been on numerous medications, all of which came with warnings...

The title of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s book Manufacturing Consent derives from presidential advisor Walter Lippmann’s phrase “the manufacture of consent”—a necessity for Lippmann, who believed that the general public is incompetent in discerning what’s truly best for them, and so their opinion must be molded by a benevolent elite who do know what’s best for them. Why has the American public not heard psychiatrists in positions of influence on the mass media debunk the chemical imbalance theory? Big Pharma’s corruption of psychiatry is only part of the explanation. Many psychiatrists, acting in the manner of a benevolent elite, did not alert the general public because they believed that the chemical imbalance theory was a useful fiction to get patients to accept their mental illness and take their medication. In other words, the chemical imbalance theory was an excellent way to manufacture consent.

My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didn’t understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.

Chuck Norris writes in WND: "I believe that too many who struggle with mild cases of depression don’t think they can find genuine relief...

Julia Llewellyn Smith reports in the Telegraph that "Last year, 53 million prescriptions were issued for antidepressants in England alone, nearly double the number prescribed a...

One of the developers of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy explains the history of its development.

Recently, This Morning featured a story on depression, in which Dr. Chris Steele advised participants that their depression was due to a 'chemical imbalance' (despite obvious environmental explanations) and that antidepressants - possibly for life - were the solution. However both the 'chemical imbalance' notion and the medical solutions it implies, for which there has never been any evidence, are outdated and now known to be harmful. Our letter asks Dr. Steele to refrain from using information that cannot be scientifically substantiated, as doing so has serious implications for the health and well-being of the viewing audience - which may be in violation of broadcasting legislation.

The Guardian writes that "Use of antidepressant drugs has become more common than ever before. Perhaps it's time that we looked at the wider causes...

Antidepressants may be effective over the short term, but research is showing that treatment resistant depression has risen dramatically in the past 30 years; evidence that the drugs may be inducing chronic depression.

From Scientific American: "A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause is unknown, depression...

Alternet attributes America's depression epidemic to corporations and right-wing politics, which feed our sense of learned helplessness, exploiting "the various ways that we all...

A recent paper argues that prescribing antidepressants shortly after the death of a loved one is problematic . . . and a few days later, a Harvard academic publicly suggests prescribing antidepressants FOR bereavement. Wait, what?

Tanya Luhrmann writes in the NY Times that, although diagnosis and pathologization of human experience has increased, "there is reason to believe that mental...

The Atlantic writes "Aerobic activity has shown to be an effective treatment for many forms of depression. So why are so many people still...

The Daily Echo features "5 Rhythms" dance classes as an alternative treatment for depression.  "Based on methods developed by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s, the...

One of the roadblocks to recovery for those who suffer from depression is our culture's tendency to stigmatize depression and other mental health disorders. After my first hospitalization, I remember the dilemma I faced in trying to explain my three-day absence to my employer. If I told the truth—that I was being treated for anxiety and depression—I stood a good chance of losing my job. Instead, I reported that I had been treated for insomnia at a sleep clinic. In another instance, a client of mine who worked as a nurse was petrified of telling her colleagues that she dealt with depression, but when she shared her diagnosis of cancer, they showered her with with love and support.

The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 14. I won’t go into the indignity of being involuntarily locked up, time after time, until I satisfactorily convinced the staff that I wouldn’t harm myself or attempt suicide again. (I was lying.) The system taught me to lie, to hide my suicidal feelings in order to escape yet another round of dehumanizing lock-ups and “treatments.”

Research from MIA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse finds that "at present, there exists no rigorous evidence to support the prescription of Ads (antidepressants) in bereavement....

Commentary in the American Journal of Psychiatry cautions that the “unbridled enthusiasm” about Ketamine as a "miracle cure" for depression "needs to be tempered...