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Cartwright, 2016 Personal agency in women’s recovery from depression: The impact of antidepressants and women’s personal efforts


dalsaan

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Title:   Personal agency in women’s recovery from depression: The impact of antidepressants and women’s personal efforts

 

Authors:  Claire CARTWRIGHT,1 Kerry GIBSON1 and John READ

 

Journal:  Clinical Psychologist (2016) 

 

 

Abstract:  

 

Background: Women are twice as likely to experience depression and use antidepressants as men. Personal agency protects against depression; how- ever, social factors contribute to lower levels of agency in women.

Aims: This study examines women’s experiences of using antidepressant treatment along with the other activities and practices they engage in to support their recovery from depression. It aims to understand how these experiences promote or diminish women’s sense of agency in regard to their recovery.

 

Method: Fifty women took part in telephone interviews focusing on experiences of antidepressants as well as personal efforts to recover. A thematic analysis examined the agency-promoting and agency-diminishing experiences of using antidepressant treatment and engaging in other activities.

 

Results: Antidepressants promoted agency when they gave women relief from depressive symptoms, allowing women to become more proactive in recovery. Women engaged in a range of activities they believed assisted recovery and hence enhanced agency. These included exercise, gaining social support, and engaging in therapy. Some, however, had shifted to long-term antidepressant use. Failed attempts to discontinue due to severe withdrawal symptoms, fear of a relapse, and the biochemical model of depression created a sense of dependence on antidepressants and thereby diminished personal agency in relation to recovery.

 

Conclusions: Antidepressants can support women to become agential in their recovery. However, long-term use signifies greater dependency on antidepressants, and personal agency is seen as insufficient. The fear of withdrawal symptoms and the biochemical model undermine women’s sense of personal agency in relation to recovery. 

 

Please note - I am not a medical practitioner and I do not give medical advice. I offer an opinion based on my own experiences, reading and discussion with others.On Effexor for 2 months at the start of 2005. Had extreme insomnia as an adverse reaction. Changed to mirtazapine. Have been trying to get off since mid 2008 with numerous failures including CTs and slow (but not slow enough tapers)Have slow tapered at 10 per cent or less for years. I have liquid mirtazapine made at a compounding chemist.

Was on 1.6 ml as at 19 March 2014.

Dropped to 1.5 ml 7 June 2014. Dropped to 1.4 in about September.

Dropped to 1.3 on 20 December 2014. Dropped to 1.2 in mid Jan 2015.

Dropped to 1 ml in late Feb 2015. I think my old medication had run out of puff so I tried 1ml when I got the new stuff and it seems to be going ok. Sleep has been good over the last week (as of 13/3/15).

Dropped to 1/2 ml 14/11/15 Fatigue still there as are memory and cognition problems. Sleep is patchy but liveable compared to what it has been in the past.

 

DRUG FREE - as at 1st May 2017

 

>My intro post is here - http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/2250-dalsaan

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Hey Dalsaan you find some interesting stuff.

 

What a strange kind of a study.

So the study basically is an interview with 50 woman on antidepressants.

I would think that unless these woman are truly informed the result will be a parroting of doctor propaganda.

That's coming through in spades.

 

This is what i am reading

ads help give woman power, (im assuming agency = power)

woman suffering wdl problems have been told they have had a relapse and need to stay on for life ..and told they have a chemical imbalance.

 

The conclusion that ads can support woman to become agents in their own recovery is contradictory to the prior statement which says failed attempts to discontinue gives a diminished sense of agency.

 

What would be far 'more agential'  imo is to not touch ads at all. Clearly this study reveals for 'some' its a slippery slope.

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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I think the argument is that for antidepressants have an initial response which gives people the space to engage in their own recovery through exercise, therapy etc. However, women often stay on because of fear or discontinuation effects and this means a form of dependency that does not support positive well being.

 

This is my experience. However, I believe my depression would have resolved without antidepressants and that given the downsides I should never have started to take them

 

Dalsaan

Please note - I am not a medical practitioner and I do not give medical advice. I offer an opinion based on my own experiences, reading and discussion with others.On Effexor for 2 months at the start of 2005. Had extreme insomnia as an adverse reaction. Changed to mirtazapine. Have been trying to get off since mid 2008 with numerous failures including CTs and slow (but not slow enough tapers)Have slow tapered at 10 per cent or less for years. I have liquid mirtazapine made at a compounding chemist.

Was on 1.6 ml as at 19 March 2014.

Dropped to 1.5 ml 7 June 2014. Dropped to 1.4 in about September.

Dropped to 1.3 on 20 December 2014. Dropped to 1.2 in mid Jan 2015.

Dropped to 1 ml in late Feb 2015. I think my old medication had run out of puff so I tried 1ml when I got the new stuff and it seems to be going ok. Sleep has been good over the last week (as of 13/3/15).

Dropped to 1/2 ml 14/11/15 Fatigue still there as are memory and cognition problems. Sleep is patchy but liveable compared to what it has been in the past.

 

DRUG FREE - as at 1st May 2017

 

>My intro post is here - http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/2250-dalsaan

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