Lifelong antidepressant maintenance is prescribed on intuition, not evidence

Evidence

Most of the patients concerned should benefit from such treatments, and only the duration remains to be determined. For some, the treatment can be continued all through a lifetime; for others, the cut-off date is five years. However, these criteria arise more from clinical intuition than from standardized results. In any case, we can imagine a life-long treatment for a single episode of depression if the patient is over fifty years old, for two episodes if she is over forty, and for more than two if she is under forty. — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 859

Categorization

• QUESTION: Would be worth chasing how clinical intuition came to outweigh standardized trials here.
• XREF: connects to: Dysthymia replaced neurotic depression, opening chemical personality therapy — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 874; SSRIs affect the personality, crossing from disease to lifestyle — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 868; True therapy must cultivate consciousness of unhappiness, not adaptation — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 76

Broader Connections

• True therapy must cultivate consciousness of unhappiness, not adaptation #contradicts (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 76