Posted by JPHR on January 10, 2009, at 22:14:09
In reply to Re: Long-Term Users of SSRI's--Need Your Help, posted by JPHR on January 10, 2009, at 13:31:15
I've been looking for research on the hypothesis that "apathy syndrome" is simply an exaggeration of the initial "I-don't-care" attitude that develops in some (many?) people soon after starting SSRI treatment. One respondent to this thread stated:
"I think the apathy is in some sense the way in which sris treat OCD. Its a strong sense of 'oh, who cares' and loss of interest."
In a later post, I offered what I thought to be a different explanation: that this initial "I-don't-care" attitude that develops soon asfter starting SSRI treatment was a consequence of anxiety reduction and, hence, not the same thing as the apathy experienced by some long-term users of SSRIs.
However, I just found an online article by David Healy (2003) that suggests that what I took to be two different explanations actually amount to the same thing--that is, they refer to varying degrees of "emotional blunting." Let me quote the relevant passage:
"The evidence that SSRIs cause emotional blunting lies in the fact that these drugs are used to treat a wide variety of anxiety states and that Seroxat [the trade name for paroxetine in the UK, called Paxil in the US] for instance advertises itself the anxiolytic antidepressant. An anxiolytic effect is by definition an instance of emotional blunting. The term blunting is applied when the degree of this effect gets to the extent that an individual perceives it to be excessive....
"The very many clinical trials that all SSRI companies have done on their drugs in anxiety states attest to the emotional blunting capacities of the SSRIs. This action of SSRIs is therefore in fact abundantly supported by randomized placebo-controlled trial evidence. This clinical trial evidence is supplemented by a growing body of case studies, which make it clear that the emotional blunting SSRIs produce, the fear reduction, can proceed too far and become an abnormal absence of fear that has consequences for behavior."
REFERENCE
Healy, D. (2003). Antidepressants and suicide. Retrieved at, http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/58090-DH.htm
poster:JPHR
thread:857586
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/873265.html