Dynamics of the Mind

Economist.com | Depression: "FOR almost a century after Sigmund Freud pioneered psychoanalysis, "talk therapy" was the treatment of choice for many mental illnesses. Artists and writers lined up to lie down and be analysed, and the ideas of Freud, Jung, and other influential psychiatrists permeated the intellectual world. They also seeped into the popular consciousness, and still pop up today whenever someone talks of a subconscious desire, a Freudian slip, a death wish, or an Oedipal complex. But advances in neurology, and especially in pharmacology, have called such therapy into question. When psychological and emotional disturbances can be traced to faulty brain chemistry and corrected with a pill, the idea that sitting and talking can treat a problem such as clinical depression might seem outdated.
Robert DeRubeis of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues beg to differ, however. They have conducted the largest clinical trial ever designed to compare talk therapy with chemical antidepressants. The result, just published in Archives of General Psychiatry, is that talking works as well as pills do. Indeed, it works better, if you take into account the lower relapse rate. "

I've never really been much of a believer in pills as a treatment for emotional/psychological problems. ADD/ADHD is by far one of the most over diagnosed ailments in the world, resulting in an surplus of ridalin and aderol traded and passed around in the university marketplace to provide "better study abilities." Not natural, and in my book, not right. Anyway, same goes for other conditions, like depression--and so this study is QUITE encouraging and I highly suggest a read of the entire article. While depression *may* be caused by chemical imbalances, more often than not I am convinced that those imbalances themselves are resultant from individual environments and methods of perceiving life. Enter the negative/positive thought processes discussed in the article. Certainly some conditions are natural abnormalities and the result of imbalances that arise on their own, but more often than not, the concept of a biological basis of human emotional behavior only goes so far. We are creatures of both genetics AND environment. Many people lackthe proper emotional tools to fight a life rife with adverse circumstances, deep trials, isolation, pain, etc....mix a few of those up, and you're going to end up with depression.... unless you can transform your methods of emotion creation--and NOT by popping a pill.

Now go drink your medicine and read this article (linked in headline).