Depression, Talk Therapy and Drugs , by Peter W. Grant, Ph.D.
Quick--what is the difference between drugs and talk therapy in treating depression? They both have some
benefits, but when it comes to feeling better in the long run, talk therapy teaches people to understand their
darker feelings, while the drugs keep them away!
So when a nasty feeling makes itself felt in the year following treatment, the people who learned about their
emotions didn’t fall back in the soup (only 25% did,) while the merely medicated dropped back in like flies, to
the tune of 80% !!
This finding, reported in a study from the January 2005 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, buttresses
claims that talking and thinking—understanding—is the ultimate treatment and cure for many dark emotional
problems
Freud was onto something, after all.
The science of it sounds like this: the antidpressant works to limit activity in the limbic system, the brain’s
centers for emotion. The talk therapy limits activity in the center of thinking, the cortex. So when the bad feeling
surfaces again, if drugs are not suppressing the limbic system, the whole of the mental system tends to become
overwhelmed again—unless the mind has been trained through talk and thought to understand what is happening
and is then able to continue to function adaptively rather than going in the tank
So when your doctor prescribes antidepressants for your blues, don’t forget to get a talk therapist to train
your brain for your benefit in the long run. Even though it is tempting to let the magic pill alone help you to evict
despair, it will pay you to find a professional to talk about it with, in order to understand these feelings, and to
prepare your mind for the inevitable encounter with your dark side. Then you will be in a good position to do the
heavy lifting involved with understanding yourself in your darker moments.
Peter Grant, Ph.D.
825 Nicollet Mall, Suite 1946
Minneapolis, MN 55402
Phone: 612 339 1463 Email: pgrant@umn.edu