The Drugs Don't Work

Or at least, the anti-depressant drugs. Apparently they might have about as much impact on those with depression as placebos.

Now, this is the sort of news story that makes me want to say "yeah, and?" Of course anti-depressants are going to have an effect on those with severe depression, and are going to have a limited impact on those with milder depression, Depression is a mental, not physical, illness. It is not an illness that can be cured by pumping drugs into someone - the very best that will do is temporarily allay some of the symptoms without dealing with the root cause of the illness. As much as it pains me to say it, the new government policy of training therapists rather than advocating the prescription of drugs may be correct.

I'm an advocate (in as much as I can advocate anything, as a layman cynical of any scheme to perfect the self) of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. So instead of prescribing endless courses of prozac, how about a trained therapist challenging those with depression on the fundamental reasons why they have depression? Instead of popping pills and hoping for the best, the medical profession should be advocating a proactive approach to understanding the illness and causes of the illness, thus enabling the sufferer to deal with their own illness in their own way.

Of course, if someone is in severe depression, then anti-depressants may help. But only as part of a wider course of psychological treatment. The answer to psychological disorders is not pills and pills alone. I concur with the conclusions of Professor Irving Kirsch, who was one of the leading researchers on the project (as quoted here):

"Given these results, there seems little reason to prescrive anti-depressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit."

Ultimately, these results are a victory for the anti-psychitary movement, and offer some hpe that in the future mental illness might be treated as something more complex than just a headache or stomach upset that can be effectively countered with pills.

Carry On Fatty

A conversation occurred in the pub last night (among the many learned contributors was the Moai) about what to do with the obese. Owing to the venue and the drinks consumed, some of the suggestions were a tad politically incorrect. And some were down right offensive, but the general feeling was the best solution was to lock them in a small room with a toilet and a basin so they could drink and shit, but leave them there locked in for two weeks. Enforced dieting, if you will.

However, no matter how evil and vicious the suggestions got, we never took the ultimate step. No, I am not talking about killing the obese (that was covered off – I believe there was a feeling that they should all be turned into soap) – I am talking about introducing that horrific harridan, *Dr* Gillian McKeith, to the proceedings.

McKeith is the kind of woman I would like to hit in the side of the head with a brick and then stamp on her throat until she confesses that she is a terrible cunt, unworthy of both the gift of life or even the gift of death. Of all the shrill harpies who preach on at prime time, she is the worst. I once wrote a long, rambling (and unpublished) post about how I feel that those people who appear on her programme (“You Are What You Shit” or whatever it is called) would benefit more from Ellis’s Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy rather than being hectored by an arrogant, ignorant gobshite – my argument was that the 30 stone mother of two who eats five chicken dinners a day probably needs therapy more than she needs shrill carping from an unqualified* cunt. But McKeith doesn’t deserve calm rational, argument**. She is a reprehensible, miserable excuse for a barely evolved human being. I would never sign up to a programme like the one she hosts – I believe such programmes are a cancerous growth on our rapidly failing society. But if I did, and she wanted to look at my stool sample, I would be tempted to force her face into it. Except I have a sneaking suspicion, what with her faecal obsession, that she would probably like it. I wonder whether she has met Mark Oaten – they would probably get on like a house on fire.

*Ben Goldacre managed to get his dead cat affiliated to the same body that McKeith claims to be a member of.

**If you want a more detailed, well-researched and less sweary deconstruction of McKeith then take a look here.