"Kevin Aylward" wrote in message
...
N. Thornton wrote:
Hi


Thats right. Yet it is tried all the time by those who
a) dont know the causes
b) haven't gone and found out what works.

And just how do you propose one finds out the cause without doing
experiments?
And just how do you propose one finds out what works without doing
experiments?


That's not so hard.

First, 'find out what works without doing experiments':

Many people have tried to treat their depression in many ways.
Many
have failed, some have succeeded. Thus many experiemnts have been done
already.

But completely ad-hoc in general, therefore of limited use.

All one need do is collect the data:
1. realise this is an effective way to learn successful methods
2. attract the people
3. assess the claimed results
4. Apply statistics to discover what is actually working.

Then we will know what works.



But you can't apply meaningful statistics to back of the envelope
studies. One needs controlled studies, double-blind tests etc...
etc....Anything else is, in reality pretty much useless. Its simply not
cricket to recommend, in a professional clinical environment, quack
cures based on dubious anecdotal claims.

Now, about 'find out the cause without doing experiments':

The prime point here is we primarily need to know what works. Whether
you also know the cause or not, what works will still work.


I agree that what works can a valid approach in some instances, in that
the reason behind is not always necessary. However, you have no idea
what *really* works without doing proper studies.

Looking at the cause can come later, for now we just want to know
what's working so we can apply it.

Its a bit like this: you can plant your wheat seeds and get a crop, or
you can sit around and worry about what causes it to grow. Its the
result that matters most.


And the side effects.


This is something I think our NHS health service needs to learn. There
are folk around who have solved many problems successfully,

Says who?. The snake oil salesman?

lots of
doctors and nurses have come across the odd one who achieved a
remarkable result with their condition.

Which could have been luck, i.e. nothing to do with any purported cure,
just fixed itself on its own. Happens all the time.

Yet the NHS is failing to
collate and assess such data, and study known successes to learn more
techniques it can apply.

One offs are not success. The evidence has to be very strong. This can
*only* come about by controlled trials. This is really a no-brainier.

Instead the NHS refuses to learn what it
doesn't know.

Confirmation of claimed cures involve large amounts of money. The system
don't have it.

Its like a river bed, among all the dirt there is gold
and diamonds, and those valuable things are simply not being made any
use of.

I think you bit out on this one. The risks of doing something wrong
simply does not allow for this approach. There are too many claimed
cures that arnt. Without proper studies, its all meaningless. One only
has two say the words "law" "sue" to put most people in the picture.


Kevin Aylwar

There are many situations where science cannot help people. These people
should not be left without any options, which is the case many times. People
who have a life threatening form of cancer which is not responding to
medical treatment, many times will turn to alternatives, and who can blame
them. If your going to die, why not try whatever you feel might help in some
way. Depression is the same thing. If the medical profession cannot help
you, which many times is the case, especially when dealing with the human
mind, then instead of waiting for the situation to get so far out of hand
that it destroys lives, it's time to try other alternatives. The idea of
selfhelp will power helping people overcome self-induced depression is
hardly a new one, but it is shunned to a degree, by professionals in the
mental health field.

Since science beleives that everything is based around cause and effect,
they always want to know the cause of the depression. That's where the
problems start for many people seeking help with depression. Concidering the
complexity of the human mind, science fails many times when trying to find
this "cause" and often mistakes the wrong events as the "cause". I have
learned from my own experiences that when dealing with depression, finding
the "cause" can be far less important than finding help for the problem. The
reason is that self-induced depression can be more a result of not wanting
to deal with events in life, then the actual events themselves. Because of
my own past experiences with depression, I beleive there is not an actual
cure for it, but rather methods that can be learned to control it. Whether
we like it or not, we all have to deal with negative events in our lives.
Learning how to deal with these events, past, present, and future, is
paramount in beating depression. Masking the events is not always the best
approach, and can often lead to far more serious problems.

Nobody should have to suffer and not be allowed alternatives treatments
for any medical or mental condition, simply because science does not approve
of them.