<story><title>Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study</title><url>https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/10/depression-treatment.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jjeaff</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure I understand what you are saying. Just that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t recognize that depression can be a chemical issue because that doesn&amp;#x27;t help us fix the problem? Are you saying that anti-depressants don&amp;#x27;t work?&lt;p&gt;So if depression is more about mental models, life choices, and drive and whatever, why do so many people suffer from depression in cycles? There is little change from one day to the next, and yet, many people with depression can feel great one day and terrible the next. Or pregnant women can feel great before giving birth and then give birth to a perfect baby and suddenly start feeling depressed soon after.&lt;p&gt;How do you use therapy to cure depression if the depressed person has no reason to feel depressed?</text></item><item><author>neuroma</author><text>Great Post, thank you for sharing.&lt;p&gt;I do take issue with the commonly parroted claim that depression can be a chemical imbalance. It&amp;#x27;s a notion arising from pharma marketing psyops, and is largely without utility. It even risks being an antipattern. 
The few pros include separating responsibility and thus alleviating some guilt, which often coexists with depression, and annoying spiritualists. Tell me if I missed any.&lt;p&gt;Analogy: if I told you an athlete is different to a couch potato because of chemical imbalance,  you&amp;#x27;d think I was obtuse. While technically correct on some level that explanation obfuscates useful relational information about training, motivation, routine, mindset, culture, and circumstance. 
Similarly if I told you to become an athlete by only taking supplements that augment the phospho creatinine ATP pathway, you&amp;#x27;d think me a crook.&lt;p&gt;Oversimplifications sell pills and make for memorable catch phrases, but fall short of empowering us to become happy and well.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s try and move our collective understanding beyond chemical imbalance; it&amp;#x27;s a tired mantra with scant utility.&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: neuro psych doctor</text></item><item><author>FailMore</author><text>While depression can certainly be caused by chemical imbalance and not because of how your unconscious mind impacts&amp;#x2F;limits your experience of life, I took the approach that exploring my subconscious through therapy was the way to get out.&lt;p&gt;For me it worked very well and I think the journey is an amazing one to go on. Building from the ground up and understanding all the foundations within. I always wonder about treatments which don&amp;#x27;t have this benefit, although the results in terms of lifestyle change sound extremely positive.&lt;p&gt;One of the hardest parts of therapy is diagnosis of what to work on. Even though an issue will be &amp;quot;presenting&amp;quot; itself clearly, it can often be a bit of a decoy. For example, a lack of self-esteem is often a useful derivative of an unconscious fear of upsetting others. Low self-esteem =&amp;gt; avoid situations&amp;#x2F;behaviours that upset others.&lt;p&gt;During therapy I found dreams, when analysed outside of the &amp;quot;conventional&amp;quot; Freudian&amp;#x2F;Jungian frameworks provided a simple and accurate method of reaching the root diagnosis (the fear of upsetting others vs. the decoy issue of low self-esteem).&lt;p&gt;I got a bit obsessed by the topic and wrote a paper on it which can be downloaded here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;psyarxiv.com&amp;#x2F;k6trz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;psyarxiv.com&amp;#x2F;k6trz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And was discussed on HN here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19143590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19143590&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neuroma</author><text>Okay how about a new analogy:&lt;p&gt;Your web app malfunctions, and a diagnostic sweep suggests the code is compromised. It&amp;#x27;s cloud hosted and open source. You&amp;#x27;re part of a team and see various recent revisions that could have exposed the app to malicious use. Furthermore your cloud provider is upgrading their hardware. Your app has to come offline whilst it&amp;#x27;s patched. Its a critical service for some clients who are hounding you.&lt;p&gt;You ask for help from a professional to get things back and working.&lt;p&gt;They say, &amp;quot;It is due to an electrical imbalance in the computers.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In psychiatry people are analogously doing just that.&lt;p&gt;We know sure that neurotransmitters have a role in mental health, in the same way as engine oil has a role in a car. Right amount in right place is necessary,  but not sufficient, for good operating. If I brough you my faulty car and you jept harking on about engine oil, I&amp;#x27;d be miffed.&lt;p&gt;Incidentally I&amp;#x27;m a staunch monoist materialist and believe brain states and  mind are facets of the same phenomena. My gripe is with pharma marketing penetrating our collective psychology. Equating depression to monoamine derangement was a very attractive notion for all but in 30 years remains unproven, and not very helpful in guiding treatment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study</title><url>https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/10/depression-treatment.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jjeaff</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure I understand what you are saying. Just that we shouldn&amp;#x27;t recognize that depression can be a chemical issue because that doesn&amp;#x27;t help us fix the problem? Are you saying that anti-depressants don&amp;#x27;t work?&lt;p&gt;So if depression is more about mental models, life choices, and drive and whatever, why do so many people suffer from depression in cycles? There is little change from one day to the next, and yet, many people with depression can feel great one day and terrible the next. Or pregnant women can feel great before giving birth and then give birth to a perfect baby and suddenly start feeling depressed soon after.&lt;p&gt;How do you use therapy to cure depression if the depressed person has no reason to feel depressed?</text></item><item><author>neuroma</author><text>Great Post, thank you for sharing.&lt;p&gt;I do take issue with the commonly parroted claim that depression can be a chemical imbalance. It&amp;#x27;s a notion arising from pharma marketing psyops, and is largely without utility. It even risks being an antipattern. 
The few pros include separating responsibility and thus alleviating some guilt, which often coexists with depression, and annoying spiritualists. Tell me if I missed any.&lt;p&gt;Analogy: if I told you an athlete is different to a couch potato because of chemical imbalance,  you&amp;#x27;d think I was obtuse. While technically correct on some level that explanation obfuscates useful relational information about training, motivation, routine, mindset, culture, and circumstance. 
Similarly if I told you to become an athlete by only taking supplements that augment the phospho creatinine ATP pathway, you&amp;#x27;d think me a crook.&lt;p&gt;Oversimplifications sell pills and make for memorable catch phrases, but fall short of empowering us to become happy and well.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s try and move our collective understanding beyond chemical imbalance; it&amp;#x27;s a tired mantra with scant utility.&lt;p&gt;Disclosure: neuro psych doctor</text></item><item><author>FailMore</author><text>While depression can certainly be caused by chemical imbalance and not because of how your unconscious mind impacts&amp;#x2F;limits your experience of life, I took the approach that exploring my subconscious through therapy was the way to get out.&lt;p&gt;For me it worked very well and I think the journey is an amazing one to go on. Building from the ground up and understanding all the foundations within. I always wonder about treatments which don&amp;#x27;t have this benefit, although the results in terms of lifestyle change sound extremely positive.&lt;p&gt;One of the hardest parts of therapy is diagnosis of what to work on. Even though an issue will be &amp;quot;presenting&amp;quot; itself clearly, it can often be a bit of a decoy. For example, a lack of self-esteem is often a useful derivative of an unconscious fear of upsetting others. Low self-esteem =&amp;gt; avoid situations&amp;#x2F;behaviours that upset others.&lt;p&gt;During therapy I found dreams, when analysed outside of the &amp;quot;conventional&amp;quot; Freudian&amp;#x2F;Jungian frameworks provided a simple and accurate method of reaching the root diagnosis (the fear of upsetting others vs. the decoy issue of low self-esteem).&lt;p&gt;I got a bit obsessed by the topic and wrote a paper on it which can be downloaded here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;psyarxiv.com&amp;#x2F;k6trz&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;psyarxiv.com&amp;#x2F;k6trz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And was discussed on HN here: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19143590&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=19143590&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andybak</author><text>Not GP and not even sure I agree with them.&lt;p&gt;However I think there&amp;#x27;s some semantic issues with &amp;quot;chemical imbalance&amp;quot; that are worthy of examination. Depending on your basic philosophical views regarding materialism and the origin of consciousness, you might be of the view that all mental states are the result of brain states. This is a reasonable view. Considering what we know about brain function and the rather broad meaning of the words &amp;quot;chemical&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;imbalance&amp;quot; arguably &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; brain states are the result of &amp;quot;chemical imbalance&amp;quot; of some kind.&lt;p&gt;(I know the brain is also an electrical system but the electrical pathways are deeply entwined with the chemical ones)</text></comment>