Irving Kirsch
Irving Kirsch
Irving Kirschis Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and a lecturer in medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also professor emeritus of psychology at the Universities of Hull and Plymouth in the United Kingdom, and the University of Connecticut in the United States. Kirsch is noted for his research on placebo effects, antidepressants, expectancy, and hypnosis. He is the originator of response expectancy theory, and his analyses of clinical trials...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth7 March 1943
CountryUnited States of America
To someone who is not currently on anti-depressants, I would suggest trying other treatments first - for example, psychotherapy.
Perhaps anti-depressants should be best reserved for the very extreme cases and, more importantly, for those who do not respond to alternative forms of interventions.
There seems little reason to prescribe anti-depressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients.
One problem I have with drug companies is that they don't make all their data public.
If doctors just spent more time with their patients so they felt more reassured, that might help.
If you're taking an antidepressant, it's working, and you're not experiencing side effects, go on taking it. But if it's not working, or not working well enough, or if you have side effects you don't like, talk to your doctor about an alternative approach.
Perhaps 10 percent of patients who are prescribed antidepressants are really benefiting from the drugs' active ingredients.
Patients who trust their doctors and have a psychological expectation of getting better could trigger a reaction in their body.
The one thing we do know is that the chemical imbalance theory - the theory that people get depressed when they don't have enough serotonin in their brain - we know that that's wrong.
The big bulk of the response to antidepressants is the placebo response.
There seem to be many causes of depression. One cause is profound loss, grief. Economic hardship we know is linked to depression. We don't have a full picture.
Nocebos often cause a physical effect, but it's not a physically produced effect. What's the cause? In many cases, it's an unanswered question.
Antidepressants can have troubling side effects and are addictive for some people.
Depression comes back over time in about 90 percent of people on antidepressants. Studies show that relapses are far less common when people are treated with psychotherapy.