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> I just think that in many cases, support of social groups, exercise etc. are more effective treatments than going to a therapist/psychiatrist or taking medica
by eivarv 10y ago
> I just think that in many cases, support of social groups, exercise etc. are more effective treatments than going to a therapist/psychiatrist or taking medication.
I'd be interested to know why you think so.
If I remember correctly, exercise is not proven to be "about as effective or more as an antidepressant", but has been proven to provide some positive effect (i.e. relieve negative symptoms) in those suffering from mild to moderate depression (relative to controls). This might have changed since last I checked though - please correct me if I'm wrong!
Mindfulness has been shown to be helpful in some circumstances, but then in a strictly defined sense - not just any old meditation.
We definitely have to wait for many studies to draw any conclusions, that much is clear.
Common wisdom might as well be common ignorance if we aren't rigorous.
Mind you, I'm not trying to justify past or current practices or societal ills;
I'm just saying that we can't throw epistemology to the wind because of our experiences, wants or beliefs.
- yequalsx 10y agoMy wife is a psychiatrist. She says that for anything less than severe depression anti-depressants don't work. Exercise and forcing oneself to be active and do stuff is more effective than drugs.
- pif 10y ago> My wife is a psychiatrist. With all the due respect, one psychiatrist's opinion is not necessarily the same as many other psychiatrists' opinions.
- zaptheimpaler 10y agoLook, psychology just went through a replication crisis where more than 50% of findings could not be reproduced. All science is not equally valid, so it doesn't make sense to take social science results as seriously as say physics because one is a lot easier to study objectively. Given that, you could call exercising or mindfulness or (new technique) unproven. I say, if it obviously doesn't cause any harm, and it might help why not try it. "Throwing epistemology to the wind" here has no negative consequence. You can't draw a scientific conclusion about whether X is beneficial sure, but you can sure as hell try it and see if it helps you. Thats what I'm advocating for. Taking some control over your own treatment. Even the point you brought up about mindfulness being shown to be helpful in some circumstances - that does NOT mean any old meditation is unhelpful. In fact, given no other knowledge than that "X type of mindfulness practiced in Y way was Z% helpful" from a paper, wouldn't you be more inclined to believe that something similar to mindfulness would have similar beneficial effects rather than the inverse that its not helpful? Thats my point - we don't have to stick so rigidly to what is "proven" to be true (especially when the field went through a crisis where half of that so called "proven" stuff wasn't so true..)
- DanBC 10y ago> I say, if it obviously doesn't cause any harm Both may well cause harm. Ignoring the fact that not treating depression can be fatal for some people we know that some people respond poorly to mindfulness because of the way they've coped with an abusive history.