Anti?-Depressants Again

One can never overstate the danger of relying heavily upon anti-depressant medication as the first line of defense for every psychological complaint and a goodly number of physical complaints as well. Anxious? take Zoloft. Can't sleep? Try Paxil. Stressed? Take Effexor. Pain? Take Celexa. Smoking? Take Wellbutrin. IBS? Take more Wellbutrin.
The way I learned it in school, non-psychiatric MDs should NEVER prescribe psychotropic medications, because 1) they are not trained to diagnose psychiatric issues and 2) they are not versed in any other approach to such problems. I also learned how to do psychotherapy in school, which MDs do not. And it turns out that study after study demonstrates that psychiatric problems are responsive to good psychotherapy, but rarely to drugs. It also turns out that a good number of medical problems are more responsive to good psychotherapy than to drugs. Hypnosis works better for IBS and WARTS (yes, you read right) than anything else out there!
The following references will help you get over the drug-company driven belief that anti-depressants are so great we should put them in our drinking water!
Oh, and it is important to note that the side effects as well as the withdrawal effects from various antidepressants include anxiety and insomnia!
Be a skeptical consumer.

Efficacy and Effectiveness of Antidepressants: Current Status of Research.
H. Edmund Pigott, Allan M. Leventhal, Gregory S. Alter, John J. Boren,
NeuroAdvantage, LLC, Clarksville, Md. , Department of Psychology, American University,
Washington, D.C. , USA
"Meta-analyses of FDA trials suggest that antidepressants are only marginally efficacious compared to placebos and document profound publication bias that inflates their apparent efficacy."

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ArtikelNr=318293&Ausgabe=254424&ProduktNr=223864&filename=318293.pdf

STAR*D Wars:
The Corruption of the National Institute of Mental Health and the Failure of Antidepressants

Friday, 30 June 2006, 12:33 pm
Opinion: Bruce E. Levine
"While the FDA’s trust of flawed and fraudulent pharmaceutical company data has long been a problem, NIMH’s STAR*D study is a kind of “boot on the face” for Americans. In STAR*D, U.S. taxpayers paid for a methodologically substandard study done by drug-company connected researchers, who drew unjustifiably positive conclusions about antidepressants. "

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0606/S00351.htm#a