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aelephant comments on Public Service Announcement Collection - Less Wrong
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Potentially dangerous advice. See a medical professional that is willing to discuss the potential risks & benefits of treatment with you before you go in asking your PCP for some Prozac. Some studies show SSRIs are only slightly more effective than placebo & they have a whole slew of side effects. They might be appropriate for some people. For other people, safer approaches like getting some counseling, fixing your diet, exercising, & socializing might be better.
Sorry, I now realize that my phrasing was misleading. I wasn't suggesting that people self-medicate: my point was rather that they should try standard treatments for depression before considering more speculative treatments. I have altered my comment accordingly.
I am familiar with the meta-analyses you cite, and that was partly the reason why I myself didn't try anti-depressants for years. However, I now realize that this was a mistake, since the evidence for SSRIs is still stronger than the evidence for all the non-standard treatments that I spent countless hours reading about. Anecdotally, SSRIs did work for me, while Roberts' "morning faces therapy" didn't.
Yes, and to be fair there will be some people who respond really well to SSRIs & some people who really need them. My main concern is that a lot of people rush to them as the 1st option & in my experience most physicians do NOT openly & honestly discuss the risks vs benefits of treatment. In fact, I've worked with quite a few doctors who outright mis-characterize the drugs they've prescribed as incapable of causing harm.
Actually, if you're reading this forum, you have a high chance of being misdiagnosed with a mental disorder and there's a book you should read - so in addition to the prescriptions being risky, they might have been unnecessary in the first place. If you really are suffering from depression, consider checking out the book referenced in my misdiagnosis link, and looking up "existential depression" in it's pages.
Note that "SSRIs are only slightly more effective than placebo" means they are still pretty good, as placebos also work pretty well on depression.