Reply To: Video: Psychiatrist Claims SSRIs Reduce Empathy, Sensitivity, & Passion in Women

  • Don Salmon

    Member
    February 19, 2023 at 7:31 pm

    Hi folks:

    Clinical Psychologist (non-prescribing) here.

    To the best of my knowledge, the current stats regarding effectiveness of treatments is this:

    40% cure rate for severe clinical depression: placebo

    41-44% cure rate: medication alone or CBT/interpersonal therapy alone

    45-50% cure rate: medication + therapy

    Philosophically, the most interesting stat here, to me, is the equal effectiveness of meds alone vs therapy alone.

    This means decades of research continues to show that virtually all of the physiological effects that Gary describes may occur through therapy alone.

    Now, another even more interesting philosophic point: nearly all the therapies they test are TALK therapies.

    I haven’t seen much research on it, but I’d be willing to bet, if you included somatic therapies (I mean based in body awareness, not more meds) in the comparisons with meds, you’d see somatic therapies + mindfulness + contemplative heart-fulness + CBT alone would be far superior to meds alone, with an over 50% cure rate (and probably higher if you add meds)

    To understand BOTH Iain’s hemispheric theories and the mind-body relationship in general, we really need to radically shift from our customary way of seeing things.

    Here’s something to ponder:

    Sri Krishna Prem (a British man who was the first non-Indian to be accepted into the Vaishnava order in India – the monastic worshippers of Krishna) once wrote:

    we tend to think of Apollo as a myth about the sun.

    A more accurate understanding of this is to consider the sun to be a myth of Apollo.

    That’s a good start in understanding the relationship between the mind, the body and the Consciousness within which both exist.