[Content note: This story contains discussion of suicide.]
Melancholia, one of depression’s early names, comes from the ancient Greek word for “black bile,” a diseased liquid believed to flood a body. It was once thought that bloodletting and other ways to let the corrupting fluids out could ease people’s minds.
Today, doctors have much better options to treat depression. Antidepressant drugs and talk therapy can be effective for many people. But these options don’t help everyone.
Jon has treatment-resistant depression. So does Amanda, an app and web designer and artist in her 30s who lives in New York City. Amanda can also rattle off a long list of therapies she has tried for the deep depression she’s felt since she was 13. She has been on 21 different antidepressant drugs. Her brain has been zapped with powerful magnets in a therapy called transcranial magnetic stimulation. She has had IV infusions of ketamine.
2023-09-21 08:36:38
Original from www.sciencenews.org
