Article/clip: What Is The Most Effective Treatment for Depression? (Dr. Mercola)

[misty]

I was always taught that antidepresants are not meant to be used as a sole source of alleviation for depression. That they only really have genuine impact if used in conjunction with other behavioural and thought therapy processes. The idea of the medication is to get a person back to a semblance of normalacy enough in the short term for the underlying issues to be treated.

****I will assume that the article was talking specifically about generalised depression, and not bi-polar I or bi-polar II, which in many individuals mood stabilising drugs are often a complete nessecity in any treatment regime; and removal of said mood stabiliser can result in behaviours and thought processes in an extremely detrimental fashion, much the same as taking away the medication of patients with other mental disorders not related to depression.****

The suggestion that other techniques and therapies are important for treating (I will not say 'curing' as many types of depression do-not / can-not be cured just continually treated) is a very valid truth. Exercise is one of the most benifical things a depressed person can do for themselves. As are other cognitive behavioural therapies. None of the psychologists or psychiatrists I know would prescribe or work with a treatment plan which included drugs without suggesting these other treaments as a major conponent of the plan. Drugs are not and should not be used in isolation. The only times I have heard of patients being perscribed drugs without other follow through treatments, have been through their GP's, who (quite frankly) do not appear to have a geniune understanding of this type of mental illness.

[Kazbah]

The UK, for example, does not routinely recommend antidepressants as the first line of therapy for mild to moderate depression anymore, and doctors there can write out a prescription to see an exercise counselor instead.

“With that prescription… you now get either a reduced rate or a free rate at a gym for six months,” Whitaker explains. “Part of the exercise might be “green gyms”… gardening outside, nature walks, repairing trails, hiking trails. And they are finding that people really like this. People comply with it…

People who have gone through this course and have been prescribed exercise, they say that rather than seeing themselves as a victim of depression, and helpless before it -- that they have this sort of biological problem they can’t do anything about -- they say, “Aha, I can make a change, I can do something. It’s in my willpower to do something that will help this problem lift.” So it empowers the patient in a different way that drugs do not.”

That makes sense, my doc has prescribed me gardening, other exercise. Plus gardening has the side-effect of Vit D which is also mentioned above.