Thread by @Telegraph

💊As doctors are told to prescribe therapy before medication in certain cases, does the answer to our mental health crisis lie with society?

@RachelKellyNet discusses the inconvenient truth about antidepressants 🧵👇

📸Rii Shroer

telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…

✍️"I punched the air this morning when I read the news that doctors should stop routinely doling out antidepressants and offer patients therapy, meditation or exercise instead," writes @RachelKellyNet

"Why is this good news for millions of us who, like me, have danced with depression for years?

"Because we are in danger of otherwise medicalising what Sigmund Freud called 'ordinary human unhappiness'"

"Let me pause here. I am not talking about severe depression, and nor is Nice.

"I suffered from two severe depressive episodes in my 30s; suicidal, I was desperate for medication"

"I was a reporter on a national newspaper with two small boys when depression struck out of the blue"

"Antidepressants can be life-saving, literally"

🔴But there are mounting concerns about the over-prescribing of the drugs: around 7.3 million people now take antidepressants, and prescriptions are disproportionately given out in areas of social deprivation, says Evidence Based Psychiatry founder Luke Montagu

According to Kelly, there are three main problems with antidepressants:

❌Efficacy
❌Potential side-effects
❌Withdrawal symptoms

➡️Luckily, other approaches to managing mild depression and anxiety do work.

Many of these are already prescribed by those GPs and psychiatrists who don’t automatically reach for their prescribing pad

🔎Read the full report to learn about the alternatives to antidepressants for managing mild cases here 👇

telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness…