are psychiatry and psychology sciences ( Archived) (87)

Kirsch’s claims appeared to receive a big boost from a meta-analysis published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association and widely reported. The study concludes that “there is little evidence” that antidepressants are more effective than a placebo for minor to moderate depression. But, as a Cornell psychiatrist, Richard Friedman, noted in a column in the Times, the meta-analysis was based on just six trials, with a total of seven hundred and eighteen subjects; three of those trials tested Paxil, and three tested imipramine, one of the earliest antidepressants, first used in 1956. Since there have been hundreds of antidepressant drug trials and there are around twenty-five antidepressants on the market, this is not a large sample. The authors of the meta-analysis also assert that “for patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial”—which suggests that antidepressants do affect mood through brain chemistry. The mystery remains unsolved.

Kirsch’s claims appeared to receive a big boost from a meta-analysis published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association and widely reported.

The study concludes that “there is little evidence” that antidepressants are more effective than a placebo for minor to moderate depression. But, as a Cornell psychiatrist, Richard Friedman, noted in a column in the Times, the meta-analysis was based on just six trials, with a total of seven hundred and eighteen subjects; three of those trials tested Paxil, and three tested imipramine,

one of the earliest antidepressants, first used in 1956. Since there have been hundreds of antidepressant drug trials and there are around twenty-five antidepressants on the market, this is not a large sample.

The authors of the meta-analysis also assert that “for patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial”—which suggests that antidepressants do affect mood through brain chemistry. The mystery remains unsolved.

Kirsch’s claims appeared to receive a big boost from a meta-analysis published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association and widely reported.

The study concludes that “there is little evidence” that antidepressants are more effective than a placebo for minor to moderate depression. But, as a Cornell psychiatrist, Richard Friedman, noted in a column in the Times, the meta-analysis was based on just six trials, with a total of seven hundred and eighteen subjects; three of those trials tested Paxil, and three tested imipramine, one of the earliest antidepressants, first used in 1956. Since there have been hundreds of antidepressant drug trials and there are around twenty-five antidepressants on the market, this is not a large sample.

The authors of the meta-analysis also assert that “for patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial”—which suggests that antidepressants do affect mood through brain chemistry. The mystery remains unsolved.


reference Is Psychiatry a Science? By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

placebos .



In short, when we think something will work, its chances of doing so increase dramatically.

Dr. Hall then refines that idea by giving it a sharper explanation: "What’s effective is not the placebo," meaning the benefit patients derive from a "dummy" pill, "but the meaning of the treatment." She hypothesizes that the power of the effect depends on four variables:

atient expectancy; motivation (the desire to improve one's health); a certain amount of conditioning, including from advertising; and endogenous opiates, or pain-relieving chemicals produced in the brain, which copy the effect of pain-relievers such as opiates.

To that end, it isn't so surprising to hear her claim: "A substantial percentage of the effects from antidepressants may be placebo effects." Her assertion jibes with one that PT blogger Dr. Philip Newton made on this site last December:

"In some controversial cases, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) anti-depressants," he wrote, "placebo effects are thought to account for a major proportion of the positive effects of a drug."


ref psychiatry to day

It sure is Pedro

Perhaps you're having a mental nreakdown lub

They are both pseudo science.