Home Remedies For Depression

Talk Therapy Versus Medication For Depression
What is the difference between medication for depression and talk therapy? One can find indications to support either of these conditions.
There are dozens of research articles that compare a waiting list control group and a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Unfortunately, there are very few articles that directly compare the two forms of treatment for depression.
Research has shown that both psychotherapy to antidepressant use are effective. Overall, the results of using both CBT and medication are better.
One the other hand, nearly all previous meta-analyses have the same problem. The trials usually used older drugs rather than newer drugs in the treatment of depression. This decision could give a partial advantage to psychotherapy because many of the participants quit the program. Fortunately, 90 percent of patients were taking an SSRI antidepressant.
Until very recently, only one research study examined how psychotherapy (mostly cognitive behavioral therapy) did well when compared to SSRI antidepressants. There are two problems with this. One is that several important trials have been published showing SSRI antidepressants and psychotherapy are equal in nature. The other is that the quality of the treatments used in research studies need close consideration.
Drug Therapy Verses Talk Therapy
To address these issues, one research study compared the use of the SSRI antidepressants to cognitive behavioral therapy.
While the antidepressants showed a little advantage over talk therapy, when the two were combined, the results against depression were found to be the same. At longer-term follow-up, the psychotherapy had a small advantage over psychotherapy.
One seems to be more effective over the long term while the other appears to work more quickly. Antidepressants work faster than psychotherapy, which takes more time and effort on the part of the patient but can actually be more effective as it instills significant behavioral changes and copping skills that the patient can utilize for the long-term.
In 1995, fewer than half the individuals receiving mental health treatment (40 percent) got antidepressants to treat their depression. Now nearly 70 percent of individuals receive drug therapy.
These drugs do have some side effects that are more common than some people think. The connection between suicide rates and antidepressants among adolescents and children is an extremely serious problem that is being looked at by the USFDA and congress.
A panel set up by the FDA is meeting to try to find out if there is an issue between suicidal thoughts and suicide among children who is taking antidepressants. The agency warned doctors of the risk of suicide in young people taking an antidepressant.
Another problem is that many HMOs limit the number of sessions of psychotherapy to ten sessions, which may deprive a person from the therapy they need.
Whether its drug therapy or talk therapy, it is essential to get help for your depression.
Researchers based on surveys taken by more than three thousand readers of Consumer Reports showed that a combination of drugs and talk therapy worked the best for the treatment of depression and anxiety.
Those whose treatment consisted of just talk therapy did nearly as well as if they had antidepressants and did well after just thirteen visits to the therapist.
Treatment consisting of mostly antidepressants has also been effective for many individuals.
The antidepressants worked faster than talk therapy but it often took a while to decide which antidepressant worked the best.
More than half of all survey participants who took an antidepressant had try two or more antidepressants and ten percent had tried at least five antidepressants before they found one that was effective against their depression. It was all a matter of trial and error until the right antidepressant could be found.