That paper just says that the effects of SSRIs scale with with the severity of depression, averaging an effect size of .2 greater than a placebo for people whos

That paper just says that the effects of SSRIs scale with with the severity of depression, averaging an effect size of .2 greater than a placebo for people whose HAM-D is less than 23. That's a small effect, smaller than the placebo effect, but it's statistically significant and we're talking p < .0001 here. ALso, a HAMD of 23 can be called anything from "very severe" to "moderate" depending on who you ask. But part of the reason you see such a small response is that according to [1] some people have significant positive responses to SSRIs but the average is brought down by people who have significant negative responses to SSRIs. For more information about SSRIs and the controversy around them than you could possibly need, see here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/ssris-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/ssris-much-more-than-yo... [1]http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1107437 http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=11074...