What Do Antidepressants Really Do?

Abstract

The fact that a disease-centred view of the nature and action of antidepressants has dominated psychiatric research since the 1960s means there has been little research into what drug-induced effects these drugs produce. Patient or user literature on their effects is also more often dominated by adisease-centred view than similar literature on neuroleptic drugs, perhaps because no alternative view of their action has ever been established. The first point to appreciate from adrug-centred perspective is that the drugs currently referred to as antidepressants come from many different chemical classes. We would expect them therefore to have quite different profiles of action. Iwill describe available evidence on two of the main classes of antidepressant drugs.