Individuals who are taking these drugs can learn all about the doses, side effects, and toxic interactions with other substances such as prescription or over-the-counter drugs they may be taking. They will also learn how to find out if the drug is really helping, how to monitor side effects, what to do if the drug doesn't work, how long to stay a drug it if it does help, and so forth. I believe interested readers will find a wealth of practical information on medicatons in these new chapters.
Readers familiar with my work will know I have not been overly enthusiastic about antidepressant medications over the years. Although I started out my career doing full-time research on brain serotonin and on antidepressant medications, I was never impressed with these agents. This is because I always had many patients who just weren't helped by these drugs. Others were helped a little, but still were not getting back to full self-esteem and joy in daily living.
That's why I developed a keen interest in the new type of drug-free therapy I describe in Feeling Good. These methods have subsequently been shown to as effective as the best current antidepressants, and often more effective, in many research studies. In the past 20 years since I first wrote Feeling Good, I have become even more impressed with the healing power of these new methods for individuals suffering from severe or mild depression.
Nevertheless, depressed individuals often receive antidepressant drugs and many people have benefitted from them. Certainly all patients deserve to have the best and the latest information about these agents. I spent approximately six months working full time to create the new material for the revised edition of Feeling Good--so that my readers would hopefully have available the best of both worlds: the best information about cognitive therapy, and the latest information about the commonly prescribed medicatons as well. (from the introduction)
