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To Treat Depression, Drugs or Therapy?
Until recently, many experts thought that a clinician could literally pick any antidepressant or type of psychotherapy at random because, with a few clinical exceptions, there was little evidence to favor one treatment over another for a given patient.
You’re feeling down, and your doctor or therapist has confirmed it: You have depression. Now what?
Until recently, many experts thought that your clinician could literally pick any antidepressant or type of psychotherapy at random because, with a few clinical exceptions, there was little evidence to favor one treatment over another for a given patient.
In fact, I used to delight in tormenting the drug company representatives when they asked me how I picked an antidepressant. I would take a quarter out of my pocket, flip the coin and say I’d let chance decide because their drug was no better or worse than their competitors’.
Although the holy grail of personalized therapy—be it with psychotropic drugs or psychotherapy—has proved elusive, we’ve learned a lot recently about individual factors that might predict a better response to one type of treatment over another.
Read more: http://nyti.ms/1HTXsbK
Source: The New York Times
