5 ms·
"In the United Kingdom, talk therapies or counselling in conjunction with medication are considered best practice. These therapies are not readily available thr
by tokenadult 13y ago
"In the United Kingdom, talk therapies or counselling in conjunction with medication are considered best practice. These therapies are not readily available through the health system in New Zealand, Dr Cartwright said"
Well, there you have it from the article. New Zealand's health care system doesn't provide best practice (as most health insurers in the United States have for years, and now must do under the Affordable Care Act). The best treatment plan for depression is some medicine that fits a particular patient hand-in-hand with talk therapy. There is a new review article in Annual Reviews of Psychology[1] that summarizes the research on best practices in treatment of depression, and that is the main conclusion: use medicines AND use talk therapy.
[1] http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131653 http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.1...
- veb 13y agoActually, we do have free therapy. Anyone can go along to their free local talky place. A GP can refer you to a psychologist if you're so much inclined. Usually, a GP will strongly advice you to talk to someone whilst on medication, and the GP receives feedback from a therapist/psychologist. I am not sure what exactly she means.
- polemic 13y agoWoah there.. citation required. There is limited therapy available for free, and often you have to convince someone that you are a high risk (ie likely suicide) before you'll get help.
- billyjobob 13y agoThe UK used to have talking therapies available on the National Health Service, but since the Conservative government cut the NHS budget I know of no-one who has been able to get them.
- asb 13y agoThere's a major problem with waiting lists for sure, mental health on the NHS is very under-resourced. [Source: my mother is a cognitive behavioural therapist]