If you're depressed, does it help to take antidepressants? Dr Mark Horowitz thought it would when he started taking them at med school, whilst training to be a psychiatrist. He became one of the world's leading experts in antidepressants and how they work. At least he thought he was, until he realised he actually knew nothing useful about them. He didn't understand the side-effects he was experiencing and he couldn't wean himself off them. This is the story of a doctor who gradually realised that everything his scientific training had taught him was not only useless but in fact destructive, when he applied it to his own life. He needed to turn to fellow patients who were taking antidepressants, who had no medical training, to find a way out of the nightmare his life had become.

I'm not claiming that everybody has a negative experience with  antidepressants. Maybe you have experience that differs from Mark. What I suggest is that you take this story as a data point to perhaps add a different perspective to what you already know. Rather than unquestioningly trusting what you are told by doctors or scientists, this story is a warning to do your own research – after all informed consent is the basis of modern medicine.

In this conversation Mark we talk about: