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I think this discussion has been very interesting, specifically the general negative attitude towards prescription medication.  I can understand why some people believe it is a “quick fix” to a problem, but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.  If somebody has an infection it’s generally looked down upon if they try natural or alternative remedies before seeking medical help or an antibiotic.  Therefore why do we tend to consider it somewhat of a copout to take medication for disorders such as depression and anxiety?  If we agree that there is a biological basis to these disorders, such as a “glitch” in the brain as Dr. Yadin said, then why do we fight against taking a medication to fix it?  I agree that it is better in some cases to try to use therapy first, but I also believe in other cases it is necessary to try therapy first.  Ultimately, the treatment should depend on what the patient is comfortable with and not society’s definition of how we believe they should be treated.   

I recognize that there are many problems with the medications; however, since those have already been discussed in this forum I would like to point out some problems I have with therapy.  First, there are some people who would feel uncomfortable discussing their intimate thoughts with a stranger and this process would ultimately fail because of a lack of commitment.  Also, they may believe that talking won’t help their problems because at the moment the problem seems too big to fix.  I think this may be one of the reasons therapy and medication together work best.  If the medication can give someone enough of a lift to make it seem like talking through problems could improve their life then maybe they are more likely to work hard in therapy.

Although I have supported medication in this post, I would like to end with support for talk therapy.  If talking to friends and family is a form of therapy than maybe most people on medication are actually seeing the benefits of that therapy and not the medication.  If someone is on medication they are actively seeking help and had to talk to a doctor about their problem to receive it.  I think it is hard to argue that these people are not receiving any type of talk therapy benefit and perhaps just admitting to someone that you have a problem and wanting to fix it is enough to start to improve.  Therefore the medication improvement rates reported may actually be due to non-traditional talk therapy, whereas it is impossible to argue that people just undergoing talk therapy are also benefiting from medication.