Many doctors don’t seek help for depression because they’re concerned about the effect it will have on their professional advancement, medical licensing, hospital privileges, and health and malpractice insurance.

The panel issued a statement encouraging physicians to seek help for mood disorders, substance abuse and suicidal tendencies. They also recommended more education in medical schools and continuing medical education to help doctors recognize depression and suicide risk in themselves, their peers and their patients.

The panel also suggests that licensing boards, accrediting organizations, employers and insurance carriers should focus on the doctor’s ability to function rather than on the doctor’s psychiatric diagnosis.

Currently, one-quarter of states have systems that discourage physicians from seeking care that could lessen their disability.

The panel advises physicians to educate themselves about state and federal protections for people with disabilities such as confidentiality of medical records and the legal rights of physicians receiving psychiatric treatment.

JAMA June 18, 2003;289:3161-3166

Doctors are even more susceptible to depression than the general public and, for the most part, they are even more clueless as to how to treat it. Of course they can use drugs and even seek psychotherapy, but we all know that these modalities don’t treat the cause.

It is the rare doctor who recognizes that lifestyle factors are foundational to addressing the issue of depression. Keys here would include:

• Omega-3 fish oils
• Cardiovascular exercise
• Proper rest
• Energetic balancing of emotional stressors
• Exposure to one hour of bright sunlight per day

As I said about depression in the last issue:

Depression, or more accurately, unrepaired emotional short-circuiting, absolutely devastates our health and, in my estimation, causes far more profound negative health consequences than all the rotten food, toxins and poisons we expose ourselves to.

Nearly two-thirds of people with depression are missed and never properly diagnosed; this is a sad testimony to the clinical astuteness of most physicians. The diagnostic clues provided in an earlier article are telling indicators that you or someone you love might be suffering from this illness.

The fiction is that patients receive adequate treatment once diagnosed.

Adequate treatment in a traditional model is a nearly universal synonym for drug therapy or ineffective cognitive counseling. Earlier this year another major review clearly showed that there is very little difference between most all antidepressants and a placebo.

Does this mean that antidepressants don’t work? Absolutely not, but in the vast majority of cases a benefit is felt because the person taking the pill believes that the pill will heal their depression. The “science” is quite clear on this.

Similarly, I posted an article earlier this year on the multi-center placebo randomized controlled trial on arthroscopic knee surgery for arthritis. Amazingly, the study showed that the surgery is no better than a placebo, yet 650,000 people in the United States receive this infective surgery each year, at a cost of about $5,000 per procedure. This equates to a total cost of about $3.3 billion every year in the United States.

But that cost and waste is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to the devastation that results when people’s lives are damaged by the trauma of inadequately treated depression.

The other major fiction is that of “expert” psychiatrists’ justification to keep people on antidepressants for the rest of their lives for so-called “maintenance therapy.” Most experts believe that one-third of depressed patients need this therapy.

I have been to many lectures at major medical schools given by prominent psychiatric department chairmen and I have asked the question from the audience, “Are there any non-drug options for this large group of people?”

The consistent response was that these “experts” said no, and each of them would recommend lifelong drug therapy as the lesser of two evils. They justify this because of the fact that over 70 percent of patients relapse with depression once they stop their medications. What a pity that so many are suffering because these “experts” are living in a delusion. Rather than recognizing that depression returns once a patient is off their medications because the drug doesn’t treat the cause, they elect to continue their Band-Aid approach.

To give some background of how I first became interested in depression, the treatment of depression has fascinated me ever since I listened to an Audio Digest tape of Dr. Joseph Tally about 20 years ago. He was an animated physician who provided a compelling story of some of the issues I am presenting here. Of course, back then his main focus was helping people with using drugs.

At that time, the drugs were the first generation non-SSRI, primarily tricyclic antidepressants, and had plenty of side effects. The main challenge was to convince patients to stay on the drugs long enough to notice them working. They would cause terrible problems with dizziness, drowsiness, weight gain and dry mouth. For the most part, these drugs are rarely used today.

Prozac was the first SSRI antidepressant that seemed to work without the terrible side effects. When it came out I was like a kid in a candy store. I was a recent medical school grad and was totally brainwashed in the drug paradigm. I put well over 1,000 patients on Prozac--probably closer to 2,000.

However, with time I gradually came to realize the futility of this approach and have since adopted a course of care that addresses the cause of the illness.

Like most families, I have been personally affected by depression. My own mother suffered from this problem several years ago and actually made several unsuccessful suicide attempts that really devastated me. This occurred just as I was making the transition into energy medicine, so initially she was treated with medications.

However, the medications and inpatient care were a terrible failure. Ultimately it was energetic techniques that helped her fully recover from the depression, and she is now healthier emotionally than she has ever been in her life.

Optimizing the diet is clearly an important step, and one of the most important tools will be to make sure you are getting enough omega-3 fats. I have had large numbers of patients spontaneously take themselves off their antidepressants once they started the fish oils.

Dr. Stoll, director of the psychopharmacology research lab at Boston's McLean Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, discusses this topic extensively in his book The Omega-3 Connection. I highly recommend this book, which reviews new evidence supporting the use of omega-3 oils for depression.

I also recommend a high-quality source of fish oil. It is necessary to have a quality source to ensure that toxins and other impurities have been removed from the oil. I offer Carlson’s brand fish oil and cod liver oil on this site, as I have found it to be of superior quality compared to all the other brands I have tried. You may also be able to find Carlson’s fish oil in your local health food store.

However, when it comes to the major player here, it is certainly energetic rebalancing techniques, my favorite of which is EFT. You can review my free, 25-page report that discusses how to perform the EFT technique, however, depression is best treated with a trained EFT therapist. To find an EFT therapist, you can review Dr. Patricia Carrington’s guidelines.

Related Articles:

Drug Treatment For Depression Is Dead Wrong

Sugar Pills Work as Well As Antidepressants

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

Treatment Options for Dealing With Depression

Defeating Depression: as Easy as Omega-3

Fish Oil in Pregnancy Treats Depression Risks