The main problem is the human brain is a complex structure, often an antidepressant targets one chemical or possibly two. People have many different reasons to be on antidepressants. Ive been on quite a few. And Im certainly aware of two that helped. One was horrendous (paxil); and others arent exactly antidepressants but "designed" to keep me in a stable mood. I'm also on other meds. So the combination of what helps/what doesnt isnt very clear, EVEN, to those that prescribe them.

Its all a bit hit & miss.

A lot more research is needed - but so much goes down to whats ethical: means they can't play too much with the human living brain.

Even just getting the correct mental health diagnosis can be hard for some. Others, they can diagnose, but have no cure. So basically they treat symptoms, and hope that it works.

Any medication prescribed in UK now is meant to come with FULL list of side-effects. If you read them, they have to put the rare side-effects too, and (not just mental health drugs) but all meds - you'll often read the thing they are meant to assist with, can sometimes cause the thing they trying to treat. Some is bureaucracy gone mad, some is keeping people informed.

Then you throw into the equation, the pharmaceutical rep, who promotes his drug to the doctor/specialist and we get wot I call "drug of the month" syndrome.

I do know of some meds that have helped, some have helped then Ive grown tolerant, and some I simply can't tell.

Placebos, can work too though, coz I know someone who sold an antacid to a lad - and he was buzzing around, dancing like a maniac, having the time of his life...the power of the human mind eh?!!

Indeed. And probably every person has heard a story of a kid who gets given something non-alcoholic to drink, thinking it contains alcohol, and yet manages to go through all of the various stages of drunkenness. They don't even know that they're feigning drunkenness, they just believe so much that they're drunk that it just comes to them. I've always found this incredible.

This is pretty much why drugs for treating mental disorders must just be so damned complicated to study. Even if the science behind some of these drugs holds up, you're dealing with mostly (aside from schizophrenia and its ilk) a health problem that can't really be seen, so the effects of any drug are only what is relayed by the person taking them. And it's difficult to rely on people to be right about it, unless it's doing stuff to them that's thoroughly out of character (such as Ronette's suicidal feelings, and things like that) since the mind can be so powerful when it thinks something is going on when it's really not.

That's not to say I don't think these drugs work. But if the pharm. companies are withholding information that contradicts the supposed effectiveness of their drugs, then that's a pretty huge problem, to state the obvious.

Clinical studies are a weird thing.
I'm not an expert - I have a degree in psychology but as anyone will tell you that means very little in itself...
But I did learn a little about the way this stuff works. And I was just struck by how
a) Practically the only statistically reliable thing is that the majority of researchers find what the WANT to find - ie. the drug companies find SSRIs work and the therapy pushers find in favour of therapy.
b) All this research **** that makes it so much more complicated than you should be - researcher bias, the shift towards the norm (research finds in the second test the results tend to always normalise - I should probably bother to read up why the **** that is), spontanious recovery, placebo, the feelings of hope that come from receiving a treatment.

The thing is, they have all this evidence to support that monoamines (serotonin/noradrenaline) are affected by depression, but there is no evidence to support this as a cause for depression. If it was the only influencing chemical factor in all depression then why all this clinical research that finds that drugs that are sorting out the monoamines are not helping many people with depression? And why evidence suggesting that other neurological differences in depression are as important as MAs?
Sure, maybe correcting serotonin imbalances will help (because this obviously has something to do with the symptomology of depression, and so many people have found SSRIs to be positive) but if they're only part of the problem then they are only going to treat some symptoms and seemingly in only some people.

I've never taken SSRIs, so I can't give a personal experience, but everyone I know who has is a bit "meh" about them - saying they helped a bit/not at all but generally they just took the edge off while it passed. While that is in a sense a good thing of course, and they're probably reliable in a clinical point of view in that they'll lead to maybe a reduced likelihood of suicide and the person being able to work sometimes, you still have to make it obvious "in many cases this will not go any way to actually helping". I've heard the same conflicting stuff about CBT, some it helps some it doesn't, but at least that heads for a cognitive cure rather than dulling a few symptoms.

Anyway people on here have always impressed me with their encyclopedic knowledge of psychopharmacology, so I'm sure I'm about to be corrected but this stuff is pretty much the most interesting thing I learnt about in my stupidly expensive studies.

Bad Science » Washing the numbers, selling the model

i'm a big fan of ben goldacre. i enjoyed my time on ssris too

Effect size statistics make me need SSRIs.