STUDY SHOWS ANTIDEPRESSANTS AS EFFECTIVE AS REDUCED EXPECTATIONS

A study of people diagnosed with clinical depression shows that reducing expectations is as effective in elevating mood as treatment with antidepressants.

Three hundred people participated in the two month analysis. Half [Group A] were prescribed antidepressants, coupled with therapy. The remaining half [Group B] received a placebo and an alternative therapy.

Group A's therapy focused on hope for the future, reinforcing feelings of self-worth, positivity, and continual self-improvement, reassuring the patients that they have every reason to live and deserve to be happy. Contrarily, Group B's sessions sought to realize subjects' feelings as valid, and part of a cause-effect relationship.

"We're not trying to blame Group B for the way they feel" said Paula Jackson, Professor of Neuroscience at the California Correspondence College of Medicine "...but helping them to accept their abject despair." adding "We're basically just lying to Group A, but we believe fantasy is generally more entertaining than apathy, and certainly more profitable."

The research concluded that subjects who either- accepted their miserable lives and simply gave up, or bolstered their delusions by altering neural chemistry, were each unsuccessful in assuaging their seemingly interminable anguish, both resulting in a 50/50 chance of self reconciliation.