Depression Talk

I nearly dropped my tea when I read this. As readers of any of my blogs know I lived many years in south England before moving back to the land of my birth — the suburbs of Philadelphia. I met many UK natives and naturalized citizens with mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder. They all seemed to have nothing but derision and scorn for talk therapy but seemed more than eager to try any new medication that came along.

I guess they pulled one over on me and whoever was listening, because the British Association for Counsellling and And Psychotherapy claim that UK citizens prefer talk therapy or cognitive behaviorial therapy than they do taking any kind of medications. Granted, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy may have a vested interest to crow about this as loud as they can, even though they are not a business guild but a charity. Which leads to the inevitable question –

How Reliable Can This Study Be?

Although the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy are the publishers of the study, Counselling in primary care: a systematic review of the evidence, they don’t appear to be the folks who funded the study. There doesn’t seem to be any major pharmaceutical company or profession with a vested interest funding the study.

BUT (and yes, it’s a big but) the British government has just invested a whopping 170 million pounds over three years into funding a government program called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. Although I do beleive that both medication and therapy helped me and can helps lots of other folks with major depression or post-natal depression, I do grit my teeth to see whenever I see that money may somehow be the sole motive of a depression treatment study. The reason I grit my teeth is that I know someone will point at the study and say, “Money is invloved, therefore the study is worthless and therefore let’s let those with depression tough it out on their own so we can fight more wars.”

The Study Itself

The study was done by Andrew Hill, Alison Prettle and Peter Jenkins from the University of Salford. They study also contains contributions by Claire Hulme from the University of Leeds. They claim that 24% of their patients wanted only counselling while only 15% wanted counselling. However, the majority of patients (61%) was far more sensible and wanted both.

Talk therapy definitely is not on the way out – in the UK, at least.