Advantages and disadvantages of counselling and drugs.

Advantages of counselling

·         Counselling will help a person to understand the cause of depression. This will help in dealing with the cause positively and avoiding negative thinking. Counselling support will help one to decrease the symptoms of depression by helping the person build up their self-esteem and confidence. The patient will also be able to change their attitude towards life after a few sessions of counselling.

·         Getting counselling help will affirm someone with depressions self-worth, improving the quality of their life by feeling more able and adequate. Since depression makes one feel hopeless and helpless, counselling will install renewed a sense of hope in life. Counselling will act as a safeguard and help one stop having life threatening thoughts like suicide, abuse of drugs, alcoholism and violence.

·         With depression, the patient tends to think of the worst case scenario, leading to unhealthy ways reactions to situations. Plymouth State University notes that counseling helps the patient make better decisions, as the counselling teaches the patient how to deal with problems in a healthy way. For example, if the patient hurts herself in response to a disappointment, such as a poor grade, the therapist will teach the patient a safer way of dealing with that situation, such as doing a breathing exercise. This skill can help the patient increase her self-confidence and work through problems.

Advantages for Drugs

·         There has been a recent controversy in North America regarding the safety of anti-depressants.  (drugs). A small percentage of people can develop suicidal thoughts when prescribed certain types of medication.  The drugs involved in these feelings belong to a class of anti-depressant known as SSRIs which work by using the chemical serotonin, found in the brain.  Symptoms include increased aggressiveness, anxiety and insomnia; however, studies have shown that less than 5% of people suffer these effects.

·         Most mental health experts agree that when depression is severe, medication can be helpful—even life-saving. However, research shows that antidepressants fall short for many people.-A major U.S. government study released in 2006 showed that fewer than 50 percent of people become symptom-free on antidepressants, even after trying two different medications.

·         Other studies show that the benefits of depression medication have been exaggerated, with some researchers concluding that, when it comes to mild to moderate depression, antidepressants are only slightly more effective than placebos.

Disadvantages of Counselling

·         A disadvantage is that psychotherapy typically takes longer than drug therapy to produce benefits that are noticeable to the person receiving treatment -- six to eight weeks or longer for psychotherapy, compared with four to six weeks for medication. Also, psychotherapy alone is not effective in people with severe depression or bipolar disorder.

·         Depending on the severity of the depression and other factors specific to each individual, a therapist selects a combination of techniques from the range of psychotherapeutic approaches. Regardless of the particular approach, the essential foundation of all psychotherapy is the establishment of a trusting relationship with the therapist. This allows the patient to share confidences, life experiences and problems. If psychotherapy alone leads to no improvement by six weeks, or if a person has only a partial or weak response by 12 weeks, medication should be strongly considered.

Disadvantages of drugs

·         It is thought that anti-depressants can often be shared around friends, particularly Prozac.  This can be dangerous and only doctors or psychiatric nurses should be prescribing this medication.  For those not clinically depressed, they will have no effect on the mood but will still lead to many of the side effects.

·         One major disadvantage of using anti-depressants is the time they take to be effective.  There will likely be a two week delay before they have any influence on mood.

·         Around a third of people who take anti-depressants will experience significant withdrawals.  Symptoms of withdrawal include flu-like symptoms, anxiety, dizziness and vivid dreams and nightmares.  While taking anti-depressants for a period of time will help many, for most it will only temporarily alleviate symptoms of depression.  It is important that the underlying causes are dealt with as well.