Do you know anyone that has unsuccessfully tried to treat depression with SSRIs?
This experience is more and more common since SSRIs have become a front-line treatment for depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions.
While SSRIs are effective for many people with depression, they carry possible side effects, only treat symptoms not the root cause and some studies have questioned their overall efficiency.
What other options are there?
In recent years psychedelic therapy has emerged as a promising breakthrough treatment option that addresses mental health problems at their root cause.
As promising as this sounds, psychedelic treatments also carry risks and aren’t a fit for everyone.
As a mental health practitioner you should be aware of the potential benefits and risks of psychedelic therapy and whether it’s a good option for your clients.
Let’s dive into the benefits and drawbacks of SSRIs vs psychedelic therapy.
The Benefits of SSRIs SSRIs are a widely used tool for treating a variety of conditions including depression and anxiety. Some studies have doubted their effectiveness while many consider them to be essential. Taking SSRIs comes with benefits and risks.A benefit of SSRIs is that people usually take them on a daily basis. Psychedelic therapy may involve one or several 6-8 hour psychedelic sessions as well as pre-session psychotherapy and integration afterwards. The simplicity of taking a pill every day makes SSRIs a simple routine although as we will see later is far more effective in combination with other treatment options.What do they do? They are intended to restore emotional stability, support a return to healthy daily routines, ease restlessness, anxiety, sleep issues, and deter suicidal thoughts.So how effective are they? Most studies on SSRIs have found they are 20-30% more effective than placebo with the effectiveness increasing with the severity of symptoms.Since most cases of depression are mild, SSRIs may not be an effective choice.If you decide a client may potentially benefit from SSRIs, it must be balanced against their drawbacks and limitations. Now, The Drawbacks of SSRIs First of all, around 30% – 50% of clients are unresponsive to SSRI treatment and 10% – 30% are considered […]
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