Irving Kirsch Quotes

15 quotes in 236 categories

• Depression is a serious problem, but drugs are not the answer. In the long run, psychotherapy is both cheaper and more effective, even for very…
• Depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and it is not cured by medication. Depression may not even be an illness…
• 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.
• I do a lot of research on the placebo effect, not just in depression but in irritable bowel syndrome, pain, arthritis of the knee, migraine,…
• Psychotherapy works, and some types of therapy have been shown to be much more effective than antidepressants over the long run.
• Anything that instills a sense of hope will at least temporarily help treat depression.
• The big bulk of the response to antidepressants is the placebo response.
• If doctors just spent more time with their patients so they felt more reassured, that might help.
• The doctor-patient relationship is critical to the placebo effect.
• Patients who trust their doctors and have a psychological expectation of getting better could trigger a reaction in their body.
• To someone who is not currently on anti-depressants, I would suggest trying other treatments first - for example, psychotherapy.
• Antidepressants can have troubling side effects and are addictive for some people.
• There seems little reason to prescribe anti-depressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients.
• 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…
• There are a variety of techniques to help people change the kind of thinking that leads them to become depressed. These techniques are called cognitive…

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