There Are Different Types Of Antidepressants

It’s relatively easy to recognize that you feel down or hopeless or anxious, but harder to identify the exact thoughts accompanying those feelings. This finding was supported by more studies in the late 1990s and 2000s, some of which was involved with, and some of which he wasn’t.Since there was never much difference between the two conditions, the conclusion was that antidepressants largely work because they act as a placebo. If antidepressants are just a placebo, then it’s unethical to prescribe them because of the potential risks involved in taking these drugs. Because of this, there was and still is intense academic and media interest in the possibility that antidepressants are placebos. Others have criticized these findings by saying that the added benefit is still not large enough for the drugs to be worth the potential risks. Right now, we don’t know in advance who will respond best to these drugs, or which drug might work best for them. A neuroscientist who researches depression treatments, says, There are lots of different types of antidepressants, so it’s not like someone is an ‘antidepressant responder’ per se, but maybe there is one type of drug they will respond to, and others that they won’t. It may be offered alongside medication, or as an alternative to it. To change how a person feels, they need to change the way they think and behave. The next step is to interrogate and scrutinize those thoughts, either alone or with the help of the therapist. Having figured out what the thought is, the person then needs to replace it with a more helpful one.

Show Some Emotion

To do this, they might need to think about what evidence there is for and against that thought, and whether there’s an alternative, more balanced way of looking at things. Imagine a person with social anxiety disorder who is particularly anxious about public speaking, and who has to give a presentation at work. By adjusting their thoughts to include and eventually focus on a fairer and more balanced interpretation of the situation, in theory there will be a positive subsequent effect on how they feel and what they are able to do. A key problem with anxiety disorders in particular is that people start avoiding the things that might cause them anxiety, like going to parties or getting in elevators or driving on the highway. If someone is extremely anxious about driving on the highway, for example, their first behavioral experiment is not to drive on the interstate alone. They might practice driving on a busy road with a friend, then build up to driving a section of the highway with them at a quiet time, then driving a section on their own, for example. The very initial steps of graded exposure can involve looking at pictures or videos of the feared activity, or even writing down its name. Some find it exceptionally helpful, but the truth is that changing the way you think is really, really hard. It can feel like the equivalent of trying to change your political or moral beliefs, or changing who you love. For this reason, it can be helpful to know that not all therapies take this analytic approach to thoughts. A person undergoing this kind of therapy might be encouraged to envisage their thoughts traveling past them as though they are on a station platform and their thoughts are a passing train, or to view them as clouds in the sky. Finally, depth therapies, like the psychoanalysis invented by Freud, don’t pay exclusive attention to the thoughts and behavior of the present but instead focus a lot on events in the person’s past that may have led to their present symptoms.

Emotionally Rescued

Many private therapists have a preferred specialty but offer a flexible approach, dipping into different techniques depending on what’s most effective for each person and their particular problem. Proponents of the common factors model of psychotherapy believe so and argue that there are a number of features that exist across all successful therapy, which are what drive positive outcomes. One of the key common factors, for example, is the therapeutic alliance, the working relationship between therapist and patient and, specifically, the quality of their bond and the extent to which their goals for the therapy are aligned. Therapists who are flexible, honest, warm, and open are more likely to have a decent therapeutic alliance with their patients, as are therapists who can accurately interpret and reflect the patient’s thoughts and feelings back to them. Finding a good therapist is like finding a good boyfriend or girlfriend. Another common factor in successful therapy is that the person has a positive expectation that it will be useful for them. This will depend partly on the expectations they have before therapy starts, but also, again, on the therapist who will provide a rationale for why the person is experiencing their symptoms and what the path is to alleviate them. Whatever the therapist’s proposed method may be, if the rationale they provide gives the patient hope that having therapy will help them get better, then it is more likely to do so. Not all evidence supports the idea that common factors explain why good therapy works. First, not all studies have found every type of therapy to be equally helpful. And just because two therapeutic approaches are similarly effective doesn’t mean they’re doing exactly the same thing, or that the approach they take doesn’t matter. As psychologist and colleagues point out in a review of the topic, Many roads lead to Rome.

Passing The Time

The debate about different approaches, and why exactly therapy works when it does, goes on. But all that notwithstanding, psychotherapy can clearly be a powerful tool in helping people manage and reduce the symptoms of mental illness. It’s exceptionally rare to be fully listened to. Possibly for the first and only time in your life, you are given the opportunity for your most distressing thoughts or harmful behavior or darkest fears to be truly heard, without judgment.