Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing.
> Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a better man. I can tolerate feelings.’”
I remember a HN comment from trained pharmacist (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32103546) that argues the same thing: “I promise you that no drug that you can take can make any permanent changes to edit your mind”
Ray looked at two different stories about his illness, the psychoanalytic and the neurobiological, but both "failed him". I would say that the psychoanalytic story has a better chance of explaining his case, but for some reason he wasn't receptive to it.
Relatedly, the chemical imbalance theory of depression was disproved in a popular study published two months ago. Here is a good summary: https://youtu.be/TZhgvr2rbwE. But SSRI are still effective, at least in reducing symptoms. We basically don't understand why and how they work.
> Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a better man. I can tolerate feelings.’”
I remember a HN comment from trained pharmacist (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32103546) that argues the same thing: “I promise you that no drug that you can take can make any permanent changes to edit your mind”
Ray looked at two different stories about his illness, the psychoanalytic and the neurobiological, but both "failed him". I would say that the psychoanalytic story has a better chance of explaining his case, but for some reason he wasn't receptive to it.
Relatedly, the chemical imbalance theory of depression was disproved in a popular study published two months ago. Here is a good summary: https://youtu.be/TZhgvr2rbwE. But SSRI are still effective, at least in reducing symptoms. We basically don't understand why and how they work.