Teen depression isn’t just bad moods and occasional melancholy. It is a very serious issue that affects every aspect of a teenager’s life, which includes family, friends, and school. If it is left untreated, mild depression may develop into the extremes. But now, the question is “How should teen depression be treated?” The most common treatments are drugs and psychotherapy. The differences between these two are that drugs give more rapid results, but it isn’t the best solution. And psychotherapy takes more time and patience, but it is more effective. Regardless of the fact that pharmacological treatment has the advantage in relieving depression quicker, it may be harmful to an individual’s health and difficult to find right medication; therefore, psychotherapy is more advantageous.
Depression is a common but serious illness. It can seriously affect one’s life in many ways and can also cause serious problems if left untreated. It can change a person’s habits, including eating, sleeping, working, relationships, and how they think about themselves. For teens going through depression, they tend to become more irritable and angry. In addition to that, they experience vague aches or pains such as headaches and stomach aches. After a while, they start to isolate themselves away from their friends. Other effects include low self-esteem, eating disorders/change of eating habits, giving up easily, use of alcohol and drugs, self-mutilation, violence, other reckless behavior, and suicidal thoughts. The best possible way to prevent mild teen depression from becoming an even bigger problem, it’s very important to get help right away.
In order to help someone with depression, you have to know what their situation is. You also have to know the symptoms to determine if they are really suffering with depression. Symptoms include persistent feelings of sadness, anxiousness, hopelessness, worthlessness, and restlessness. Teens with depression may also feel guilt, anger, fatigue, and indifferent. They too tend to lose interest in the things they love to do; for example, maybe a sport or friend outings.
It has been proven that treatment consisting of mainly pharmacological therapy was effective for many people. Drugs had a quicker effect on the symptoms of depression than talk therapy. It also stated that a combination of counseling and medication worked best in relieving major depression and anxiety. However, the individuals in whom their treatments included more talk therapy did nearly just as well as if they had 13 more sessions with their therapist. It would be better for teens to get the talk therapy treatment because it allows them to let out and release all their tense feelings which reduces the stress in their life and prevents suicidal thoughts from increasing. Also, it lessens teen exposure to drugs that could possibly become addictive.
One of the biggest issues with medication, such as antidepressants, is the side effects in which some are very serious. Apparently there is a link between antidepressants and suicide rates among teens. Teens might increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors while taking antidepressants. On the other hand, like what I have stated earlier, psychotherapy allows teenagers to express their thoughts decreasing the possibility of suicidal thoughts from developing.
Most people prefer pharmacological therapy because it offers faster results. However, another big issue with drug therapy is that it often takes trial and error to get just the correct medication for a certain person because it depends on their needs. By that, I mean that it might take quite a while to find the proper drug treatment without undesirable side effects. So technically, drug treatment isn’t the quickest way to fix depression. Even though psychotherapy doesn’t give results right away, the later outcomes are worth it. Compared to drugs which you can constantly change, it would be difficult to change your therapist because it would take some more time to get used to you new therapist. Also since you’ve know your therapist for a long period of time, he/she knows exactly what your needs and preferences are. It would be hard for someone, especially a teen, to adapt to a new environment as well.
Whether it is drugs or counseling, teens with depression or developing depression should get help as soon as possible. However, one method is better than the other and that is psychotherapy. Admittedly pharmacological treatment has its advantages regarding speed, but it’s not worth wasting your time changing from medication to medication for, it’s not worth suffering side effects for, and it’s not worth committing suicide for.
