North and north-east health professionals are calling for Scotland to take a therapy-first approach to depression, rather than relying on medication.
This week the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) laid out guidelines for how mental illness is treated in England.
While these are still in draft form, they suggest patients with less severe symptoms are offered the likes of therapy and mindfulness before being given medication.
Prescription numbers for antidepressants have risen around 70% in Scotland over the last decade, with concerns they’re seen as an easy option by clinicians.
Scotland’s mental wellbeing minister says the Nice guidance is welcomed – and a review is taking place.
Pros and cons ‘grossly oversimplified’
Beverley Thomson, a psychiatric medication researcher from the Highlands, said: “It seems to suit both doctors and patients to readily accept medication as the answer rather than address the issues causing our depression, stress, anxiety, or sadness.”
Beverley has also written a book, Antidepressed, which is being published by Penguin Random House and Hatherleigh Press next month.
She added: “We read so many times that it’s just like taking medicine for a physical condition and they are simply another treatment option to help you get better.
“This is grossly oversimplified and is in many cases untrue.
If you’re thinking of suicide and need help now, you can contact the Samaritans 24/7 free of charge on 116 123.
“Taking drugs we often don’t need or understand can have life-changing, often irreversible effects on us physically and psychologically.”
Meds only treat symptoms and not cause, but can still be ‘life-saving’
Aberdeen psychotherapist Katarzyna Adamczyk has found, for some patients, antidepressants have held solutions to their problems.
But she explained: “They combat some of the symptoms, but they don’t resolve depression.
“We tend to treat [depression] as an illness and I believe it should be understood as a human experience.
“We can have depression in response to losing someone that was near and dear to our life or losing a job and not being financially stable.
“It’s almost a normal response to harmful conditions that happened in our lives.”
Danger of ‘medicating the alarm bells away’
Fellow psychotherapist Zac Fine, who also practices in Aberdeen, said the guidance is a step in the right direction.
“Mild depression, just like sadness, grief and physical illness is an essential, normal and healthy part of being a ‘whole’ person,” he said,
“To treat the ‘symptoms’ of being human in an attempt to make them go away can certainly alleviate emotional and psychological distress in the short term.
“But, ultimately, it undermines the whole point of that discomfort: the body is telling us that something is badly wrong and that we need to change.
“If we ignore the message, the body shouts louder, perhaps with anxiety attacks, depression, or with migraines, back pain and other physical symptoms.
“By medicating these alarm bells away we unwittingly trap ourselves in a perpetual prison of emotional and spiritual stasis.”
Mental Wellbeing Minister Kevin Stewart said: “We’re currently reviewing our approach to ensure people with less severe depression get access to the right therapies as a first step before the prescription of antidepressants.”