AOL Health quoted me today on a new study which provides evidence for aggressive treatment of teen depression. The study supports the practice I found effective when I worked with teens and young adults on a regular basis.
Some might argue that the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) need more time. However, practically, people don’t stay compliant with recommendations when there is little to no improvement. There are so many options from which to choose, it seems reasonable to pursue a new course while motivation to keep trying might be strong.
UPDATE: For some reason, the article is no longer available. Here is a link to a similar article and then to the press release about the study.
ABA is pretty standard stuff in the Autism world, the shocking stuff though I think is passe for the most part. I am in the middle of several things but will try to look into this more when able…
Warren – what is your professional view of the therapies described in this article? CSS in particular.
And of course The Christian World View of Psychology and Counseling. and George Rekers other work, The Christian World View Of The Family.
I admit I have an axe to grind. So I’d like some peer review from someone likely to be more objective about it than I am.
I can actually imagine operant conditioning involving pain-stimulus/reward as being the only way to ensure the safety of some severely intellectually disabled people. I’d just want an ethical panel to review each individual case, as there’d be few of them.
Yeah, for some reason the article was pulled after only about 10 hours.
I think the study was pretty specific and would have eliminated those cases from consideration. However, I will need to look at it to see for sure. You make a good point though about several attempts and the implications of those trials.
Just a word of caution (and I couldn’t get the article to pull up so I don’t really know what it says): While changing meds sooner than the alloted 6 weeks can help, and while I truly believe that there are many times that meds are very clearly not working sooner than 6 weeks (and I have also suffered greatly when forced to go 6 weeks before any changes were made and fully admit to manipulating the system to get more of the last med I went on long before I was scheduled to), but don’t forget that non-responsiveness to multiple antidepressants is a soft sign of bipolar disorder,and that taking many different ADs over time can contribute to both the development and worsening of rapid cycling. It’s firmly believed that some of my severity is because of a couple doctors trialing nearly every med ever made before introducing lithium. And you know some of the consequences of those years all too well…….