Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2

NancyLebovitz

This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.

What would you do to assess the advisability of taking antidepressants?

I'm trying to advise someone who is receiving conflicting advice; there appears to be plenty of controversy in this area and many factors confound assessing the evidence. Before I point to specifics on evidence that might influence the decision one way or the other I thought I'd ask in the most general way I can. I hope using the Open Thread to play "ask a rationalist" like this isn't a bad thing!

Amusingly, Marc Hauser's group at Harvard has just published a paper saying that use of SSRIs change people's ethical judgments on trolley problems. Here are accounts from two blogs

2Perplexed16y

I was prescribed Buproprion (a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, not an SSRI) as a smoking cessation aid. With my doctor's acquiescence, I continue taking it at lower dosage for its beneficial (placebo?) effects on mild depression. If your friend's depression is associated with anxiety, or with mild addictive personality or "low will power", I would recommend it, perhaps coupled with an exercise program.

0Scott Alexander16y

Whether antidepressants (realistically you're probably talking about SSRIs) do enough better than placebo in moderate cases of depression to be worthwhile is a very tough question. But from a pragmatic viewpoint, SSRIs and placebo both do much better than nothing. Unless your friend can figure out some way to take a placebo and believe it to be effective, the SSRIs could be worth it.

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