020: The Truth About Antidepressants?

Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy

David Burns, MD

Clinical, Therapy, Anxiety, Psychotherapy, Depression, Health & Fitness, Cognitive, Mentalhealth, Mental Health, Behavior, Education, Self-improvement, Psychology, Relationships, Addiction, Happiness, Personalgrowth

4.4 • 856 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2017

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discussion of recent startling and disturbing research studies by Dr. Irving Kirsch and others that suggest that the chemicals called “antidepressants” may, in reality, have few or no true antidepressant effects above and beyond their placebo effects. Dr. Burns illustrates the placebo effect with a thought experiment, and explains why it is so confusing to researchers and the general public alike.

In addition, David and Fabrice discuss additional troubling research by Dr. David Healey and others that indicates that the chemicals called “antidepressants” appear to cause a doubling or tripling of the likelihood that a depressed individual will commit suicide or become actively suicidal, as compared with depressed individuals treated with placebos. David concludes with a discussion emphasizing that the needs of marketing are in conflict with the needs of sciences, and proposes some solutions to this serious problem.

Dr. Burns emphasizes that he is only providing his interpretation of some extremely controversial studies, based on his research training and clinical experience. He urges listeners to do their own research and critical thinking on this disturbing topic, and emphasizes that many may come to different conclusions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Feeling Good podcast.
0:12.4	I am your host, Fabrice Knight.
0:14.7	And joining me here in the Murrieta Studios is Dr. David Burns.
0:19.0	Hi, David.
0:20.0	Hi, Fabrice.
0:23.8	Dr. David Burns has been a pioneer in the development of cognitive therapy, and he is the creator of the new team therapy. He is the author of
0:30.2	Feeling Good, which has sold over 5 million copies in the United States, and has been translated into
0:35.5	over 20 languages. He is an emeritus adjunct clinical professor
0:40.0	of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. We have a topic today that
0:46.9	you and I have discussed a lot and you've talked about this in group. And it's about using
0:53.7	antidepressants as an adjunct to therapy.
0:57.4	But there's been some controversy about this recently.
1:02.0	You've co-written an article.
1:05.4	What was the title of the article that you wrote?
1:07.7	Well, the article that I co-authored was Antunuchio Burns and Danton, and it was entitled
1:13.7	Antidepressants, Colon, A Triumph of Marketing Over Science, Question Mark.
1:20.4	And that was in the journal Prevention and Treatment.
1:22.7	It came out a good 10 years ago, and I'll put the reference...
1:28.5	Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes.
1:29.8	On the show notes there, but that was one of the most downloaded articles, you know, from
1:37.2	mental health field research articles in a decade.
1:41.7	That was a very popular article.
	...

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