Well said, Scott. A very balanced viewpoint, supported by many of us. Dap Louw ******************************************************************** Dap Louw, Ph.D.(Psych.), Ph.D. (Crim.) Head: Centre for Psychology and the Law Senior Professor: Department of Psychology University of the Free State P.O. Box 339 Bloemfontein 9300 South Africa Tel: (051) 401-2444 (work) (051) 436-3423 (home) Fax to pc: 088 051 436 3423 Email: [email protected] Cell: 083-391-8331
******************************************************************** >>> "Lilienfeld, Scott O" <[email protected]> 9/20/2011 1:20 PM >>> Mike Williams wrote that "The other medications, including all the antidepressants, have no treatment effect." Mike later says, when describing the effecs of such medicatiions, that "there is nothing there." Mike, I had thought your very point was because most studies of antidepressants aren't conducted in a strictly double-blind fashion (because of medication side effects...although you didn't address active placebo studies), we cannot draw clear-cut conclusions from them. But Mike, you are now saying that we can conclude with confidence that antidepressants have no treatment effect. One can't have things both ways - if the studies are categorically "invalid" (not merely imperfect) as you asserted in previous messages, then one can't draw conclusions from them one way or the other. Mike, I don't follow your logic here. Mike, you also never responded to my points or Jim Clark's questions regarding your earlier claims that "all" of the dependent measures in antidepressant studies come from either clients or therapists themselves. When I pointed out (with references to meta-analyses) that this assertion was false, you merely continued to reiterate your previous points without acknowledgng our criticisms. I have to confess that I'm finding this TIPS discussion regarding antidepressant and therapeutic efficacy increasingly troubling. It seems to be more of a discussion of ideology than science. It also seems to be marked by the kind of dichotomous, categorical claims (e.g., studies of therapeutic efficacy are "invalid", antidepressants "have no treatment effect," "there is nothing there," "ECT is pure behavior therapy," "ECT is a punishment condition," "the Beck Depression Inventory..is not a measure of mood") that we would rightly criticize in our students. Again, I am somewhat skeptical of many claims of strong antidepressant efficacy myself, so have no particular agenda in this debate. But shouldn't we be refraining from drawing extremely strong conclusions from large, extreme complex bodies of literature that we all agree are challenging to interpret given various methodological limitations? I also worry that this discussion is mixing up epistemic with ontological assertions. It's one thing to say "I think that studies of antidepressant medication are inconclusive because of methodological flaws (and that many people have overstated the strength of evidence for their efficacy)" but another to say "It's clear that antidepressant medications don't work." One is an assertion about the evidence for claim X, the other is an assertion about the verimissilude of claim X. These are two entirely different assertions, and Mike wants to be able to make both of them. I don't think he can. ....Scott ________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ University of the Free State: This message and its contents are subject to a disclaimer. Please refer to http://www.ufs.ac.za/disclaimer for full details. Universiteit van die Vrystaat: Hierdie boodskap en sy inhoud is aan 'n vrywaringsklousule onderhewig. Volledige besonderhede is by http://www.ufs.ac.za/vrywaring beskikbaar. _____________________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=12794 or send a blank email to leave-12794-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
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