Recently, several well-known doctors, like Drs. Hyman and Weil, have underscored how ineffective antidepressant pharmaceuticals are for treating mild to moderate depression.

Some studies they’re no more effective than placebos.

So, Dr. Weil wants people to use useful strategies instead of antidepressants, and has written a book on the topic which is reviewed in “Dr. Weil’s Four Alternatives to Antidepressant Drugs” http://wp.me/pA04z-PM

I’ve certainly had a few battles with mild depression. Enough to take a good hard look at it. A lot of reading. Some experimentation. Wrote this on the subject: “A Little Depressed? 10 Actions That Help Me” http://wp.me/pA04z-Pz

I think that the key thing to discover is what mechanism, thought, emotion, action, person will help you take the right action to alleviate depression when you’re in it.

Because knowing what to do is worthless unless you can get yourself to do it, and often times the most notable fact about being depressed is that you can’t take the step you know you need to vanquish it.

Yep.

The whole thing is not simple or efficient or clear. We depressed Stumblers do not have much patience you know.

It is very confusing to be told what you thought would be popular. No offence, but we don’t care. We just want to know what works. Leave us to be surprised or not about the popularity of something. It would be better to make the explanatory text relevant and helpful.

The infographic may look beautiful to you, but it is too complicated and difficult to understand. It took me quite a while to figure it out, and I’m trained in mathematics. The orange and green rectangles look like part of the graph at first, and just mess with my head. The cut-off points should have been left out in my opinion. As it is, they seem arbitrary, and chosen by you, and they just confuse everything. I think you should forget about “quadrants”. I can’t even be bothered to try and understand most of the key at the bottom of the page. Oh – I just did – and I wish you hadn’t.

Even now I think I have it figured out, I am still unwilling to refer to it for advice. It is just too crazy to look at. This is a shame because I am sure that I could learn more from it.

You can tell I don’t have a job, can’t you? Time on the old hands. I do care about this matter though, because the information is important to some people.

I guess I have the same question about another practice I find to be excellent: meditation. What type of meditation is effective? I mean, I know what’s effective for me, but someone looking at the infographic might be confused because it’s identified twice. Once simply as “meditation” and again, less popularly and less effectively, as “mindful meditation.” It would be great if that could be clarified because, believe me, there’s a world of difference between a Vipassana retreat and an eight week MBSR program run out of the local hospital. In my experience, Vipassana is not really suitable for someone who is still within the clutches of the illness. Save that trip for when you’ve recovered.

Lastly, I’m confused about the position occupied by SSRI’s. As a group, they’re popular and effective. Individually – as Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro – they don’t seem to be popular or effective. How does that work?

I’m probably just being a pain in the ass. This really is wonderful work and you’re to be commended for making it available.

Keep on rocking in the free world!