Medication Use

Other than in cases of safety, learning, or day to day functioning, medication use should occur sparingly or not at all. Even in the previous cases mentioned, meds should be used while other viable alternatives are explored.

Manic Depression

For example, people with manic depression symptoms are usually treated with a pharmacological intervention (meds) and with therapy as a possible adjunct. In extreme cases hospitalization may be necessary. Maintenance of continued therapy is recommended because of the high rate of relapse within six (6) months of remission of symptoms.

Because of this, drug therapy is continued but often at lower doses. At this point discontinuation of meds is not advised because of the risk of recurrence of symptoms. Always consult your medical doctor or psychiatrist before making any decisions concerning medication use, and if not satisfied get two (2) or three (3) opinions from other doctors.

Having worked with children and adults with manic depression or bipolar disorder, I have experienced the need for meds as well as therapy, but have also seen the side effects from medications that adversely affect the health of the individual.

In fact, the FDA determined that children and adolescents who take antidepressant meds for depression or other mental health conditions are at an increased risk for suicidal thinking and behavior. So what can be done about this if anything?

Research Project on Depression

In 1989 a two (2) year study, called the Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Project, was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The purpose was to examine the effectiveness of psychotherapy compared to medications in cases of depression.

Four (4) treatment groups were randomly selected from two hundred and fifty (250) outpatients with cases of major depression. One group was given a placebo or inert pill, another an antidepressant called imipramine, the third group was given interpersonal psychotherapy, while the last group received cognitive behavior therapy. The first two groups also saw a psychiatrist to receive their meds (clinical management).

All four (4) groups had a reduction in symptoms, with imipramine producting the greatest gains in people with severe depression, the placebo the least, and the two (2) psychotherapies in between. But for individuals with mild to moderate depression, the therapies produced results equal to the meds.

Despite this and subsequent studies showing the effectiveness of psychotherapy, even today many scientists are still convinced that psychotherapies are not as effective as meds. There are many reasons for this, but even though we live in a “Prozac World”, proof continues to mount for the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

People with depression have frequent relapses. A psychologist by the name of Zindel Segal, the head of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Clinic at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, studied the rate of relapse for people with depression.

Segal discovered that “the experience of depression imprints a tendency to fall back on certain patterns of thinking and to activate certain networks in working memory.” In other words people need to learn to think differently about the types of sadness and disappointment that we all experience.

This was his theory of depressive relapse or the tendency to fall back into depression as a result of minor setbacks. He later found that mental training can reduce the rate of relapse in depression through mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

Keep an Open Mind

Always keep an open mind because there are solutions available. Keep searching until you find the one that works for you. In 2002 Helen Mayberg, a neuroscientist, discovered that antidepressant meds and placebos (inert pills) have identical effects on the brains of people with depression. Brain activity changed in the same way.

So when it comes to medication use, do your homework and make an informed decision with the assistance of your medical team. I suggest to keep expanding your medical team with professionals who are continuing to research safer alternatives, that not only address symptoms, but actually get at the cause of these challenges. Click here to return to the Transforming Child Behavior Home page.

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