walkerhound: What a placebo pill might look like:
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/yes I'm drunk at 7am on xmas eve, what's it to ya'?

hey, just sounds like you ae getting into the Christmas spirits.

In related news, I am starting a new pharmaceutical company selling my own antidepressent drug, "Farkall". I plan to contract out the manufacturing process to the makers of Tic-Tacs. BTW, my product has been proven to be as effective as the the most commonly prescribed antidepressent, but costs 20% less!

gwydion56: I am starting a new pharmaceutical company selling my own antidepressent drug, "Farkall".

Wouldn't that "Farkitall" ?

This is depressing

imagonyx123: What a fistful looks like...

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Our surgeons did what they could, but it took them two hours just to get the smile off his face.

Depression Cured!

walkerhound: What a placebo pill might look like:
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/yes I'm drunk at 7am on xmas eve, what's it to ya'?

Nah, that's booze. That's good medicine. This would be the placebo.

Or get laid.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain but when it goes beyond the normal factor of 'the blues' and becomes a chronic, long lasting condition accompanied by a host of secondary characteristics, then it involves the thought processes and emotional structure.

Placebos have been known to work for mild depression, but the conditions known as major depression, manic depression and bipolar depression are considered much more serious and more deeply rooted. They tend to periodically affect the thought processes, can be caused by changes in chemicals in the brain and secondary symptom logy can include Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, suicidal thoughts or tendencies, lethargy, agoraphobia, rapid mood swings and/or violent tendencies.

It can also include visual and auditory hallucinations along with a withdrawal from society.

Previous cures for depression have been observed like major life changes. Winning the lottery has a great potential as a cure. Landing your dream job, moving to a better neighborhood, surrounding yourself with friends who are caring, supportive and concerned, getting out of major debt or even finding that special someone you've been looking for all of your life -- and have him/her respond.

One of the problems with chronic depression is that it takes a long time to form and become deep rooted. Basically, your brain learns to be depressed and you wind up fighting yourself to get back to normal, but your brain knows every secret weakness you have and uses them against you.

A major amount of alcoholics are self medicating depressives. So are many hard core drug users. Suicide rates among depressives tend to be high.

Depression, in the majority of it's forms, is curable, but it is usually a lengthy process, increasing with the amount of time the person has been affected and the version of depression they have.

Around 30 years ago, a group of psychiatry students performed and experiment at the college they attended. They selected a specific group of students to study and work with without their knowledge. These students were under achievers, wall flowers, shy, had few friends, kept to themselves a lot and some had symptoms of depression and anxiety. These were the people who sat in the back of the class, didn't attend parties, had low self confidence, avoided sports events and didn't join clubs or organizations.

The psychology majors used 'supportive' therapy. They started praising the experimental group, taking an interest in them, accenting their good points, including them in social activities, watching out for them, being encouraging, sympathetic and caring.

The end result was a nearly 98% change in the subject group. They became more confident, more outgoing, happier, performed better, made more friends and in many cases, those with depression returned to normal. Those with anxiety became much less anxious. The shy ones fit in better.

It was a spectacular success for non-pharmaceutical therapy.

However, nothing was mentioned as to what happened to the test group once the experiment was over and most of the support withdrawn. I assume there was a high rate of recidivism. Still, there would have been a large percentage who would have their lives changed for the better.

While interesting, this form of therapy isn't practical since it involves a large group of people working almost around the clock to reinforce the desired changes in the subject group. Today, such a therapy would be tremendously expensive.

However, it did show what could happen if you lived in a supportive area with people you got along with and who were not preoccupied with their own personal problems and gripes.

The rates of chronic depression would be low, which would also improve the general health of the people.

Though, good luck in finding such a supportive area. Until then, pharmaceuticals are the best bet. They offer a cheaper way to change the chemical imbalance of the brain and combined with talk therapy, can dramatically reduce or alleviate the depression in many cases.

Remember, it usually takes years for a person to develop severe depression, meaning it can also take years for them to recover from it.

Unbelievers!