Posted by metric on May 13, 2009, at 13:09:07
In reply to Re: Antidepressants Hardly Help ?????????, posted by SLS on May 11, 2009, at 15:11:05
> Who actually walks through the door? People can feel depressed for reasons ranging from the biological to the psychological to the situational for periods of time that are well over the two week minimum that is the criterion of the DSM IV.
There is no a priori reason to suppose that one group (e.g., "situationally depressed") is more or less responsive to pharmacotherapy than the other. It's also not clear that such groups *are* different.
> Someone with no biological depression can certainly be chronically depressed because of a multitude of psychological and emotional reasons. This is precisely the part of the population of treatment-seeking people who must be EXCLUDED rather than included.
Why?? People become depressed for many reasons. Drug therapy may be appropriate regardless of the cause.
> I contend that these subpopulations DO NOT suffer from having a biological illness that should be the target of these investigations.
If "biological illness" simply means "drug-responsive", then it's tautological to say they shouldn't receive antidepressants. If it means something else, please clarify.
poster:metric
thread:895119
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090505/msgs/895552.html