Tag Archives: antidepressants

Antidepressants: The Emperor’s New Drugs? “Depression is not a brain disease, and chemicals don’t cure it.”

Antidepressants are supposed to be the magic bullet for curing depression. But are they? I used to think so. As a clinical psychologist, I used to refer depressed clients to psychiatric colleagues to have them prescribed. But over the past decade, researchers have uncovered mounting evidence that they are not. It seems that we have been misled. Depression is not a brain disease, and chemicals don’t cure it.

America’s exportation of mental disorders and drugs “Making the rest of the world crazy”

Americans are a generous people. We donate riches to needy countries. We send our troops abroad. We have exported some of history’s most influential cultural, scientific, and social inventions: democracy, fast food, and Britney Spears. Whether that generosity is helpful to other nations is another question. And so it goes with mental health. According to Ethan Watters in “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche,’’ the American way of perceiving and treating mental illness has quickly and ruthlessly become the worldwide way.

Daily Mail – “Internal bleeding. Strokes. Birth defects. The long term effects of antidepressants are terrifying”

Doctors still routinely reassure patients that the side-effects of antidepressants are largely mild and short term – these include drowsiness, dizziness and weight gain that become obvious in the first few weeks and can normally be reversed by trying another type of pill. Yet there is growing evidence that long-term use is linked to more serious health problems including bleeding in the gut, low sodium levels in the elderly (which can lead to falls) and increased risk of stroke. Recently it’s been claimed that some antidepressants may increase the risk of birth defects.