Join the Community Sign up for free access to premium content, valuable teaching resources, and much more. Get Free Premium Access
On rare occasion, I have reported startling findings that challenge current wisdom: Brain training games do NOT boost intelligence. Traumatic experiences are NOT often repressed. Seasonal affective disorder (wintertime blues) is NOT widespread.
The just-arrived lectures from the 2016 Bial Symposium on Placebo Effects, Healing and Meditation, offers another shocker: In an update on his meta-analyses, Irving Kirsch concludes that antidepressant drug effects are close to nil.
Here’s Kirsch’s gist: Many, many studies, including unpublished drug trials made available by the FDA, consistently show that
Given that antidepressants work, even if they are hardly more than active placebos, what’s a clinician to recommend? Kirsch notes three considerations:
Ergo, “When different treatments are equally effective, choice should be based on risk and harm, and of all of these treatments, antidepressant drugs are the riskiest and most harmful. If they are to be used at all, it should be as a last resort.”
But surely this is not the last word. Stay tuned for more findings and debate.
You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in.