Would You Rather Take The Pills Or Learn The Skills?

In a society that embraces the use of pills for everything from oppositional childhood behavior to weight loss, it should come as no surprise that a recent study reveals that depression is overdiagnosed and overtreated with medication. The study, conducted at Johns Hopkins, finds that many people are taking antidepressant medication even though they do not meet the criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, the condition for which medication is most often appropriate. 

To put this in context, let's say your child refuses to go to bed or hits her brother. I'm guessing your first line of attack is not to go to your doctor and ask for medication. Let's say you look in the mirror one day and recognize that you really need to lose 40 pounds or so. Is medication your first thought? 

Consider the losses we all experience living in this world: getting fired from a job, the death of a loved one, or divorce, just to name a few. Read more here...

Pills or Skills?

I stole this title from an article I read many years ago about ritalin for kids with ADHD. Last week I watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. As I implied in my last blog, Jesse would have been medicated today, or at least someone would have tried to medicate him. His mood swings were pronounced and deadly.

The nature-nurture debate has always fascinated me. If it’s nature, medication makes a lot of sense to me. Even with nurture, perhaps Jesse’s parents’ were abusive and he was traumatized, I can see the possibilities.

But how do we remain unique, exciting and daring if we’re in a prozac fog? I’ll add creative as well, although I certainly know a lot of creative souls who take their antidepressants religiously.

What does this have to do with life coaching and psychotherapy, anyway? Simply this: if you’re interested in change, medication sometimes reduces the motivation for change. You start to feel better, even if you’re in a bad situation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s necessarily bad, and clearly it’s essential for survival at times. Many of my most interesting clients take medication. But where do we draw the lines?

I recently attended a psychopharmacology workshop. A requirement, interestingly, for license renewal for psychologists in the state of Georgia. The presenter showed a few clips from Sophie’s Choice. They depicted her depression and PTSD quite well. Later I thought, you want to medicate Sophie? Styron himself relied on antidepressant medication and his book, Darkness Visible, is an awesome look at depression.

The point is that we have to consider these choices carefully. I know, like you wouldn’t. But honestly, there are a lot of unanswered questions in the medication arena. It makes me wonder about my own recommendations, the standard in psychotherapy being, well, if we don’t see any improvement in [fill in the blank based on severity] weeks, let’s discuss medication again.

Check out When do meds make the difference?" in the APA Monitor on Psychology at http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb08/meds.html, Listening to Prozac, by Peter Kramer and Ritalin is not the Answer, by David Stein.