What Actually Matters to Patients: Do Depression Scales Work?

The traditional medical model often approaches mental health with a primary focus on alleviating symptoms. While reducing suffering is crucial, this approach can sometimes overlook the broader goal of enhancing well-being and fostering a fulfilling life.

If our life is on a scale, one side is "negative valence" (with depression, anxiety, etc.) and the other is "positive valence" (with joy, meaning, connection). Modern medicine excels at lowering the negative, but what about boosting the positive? This is the missing link of modern medicine, and innovative treatments like IV Ketamine and the Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) offer a path towards a more holistic approach to mental health.

Reducing Negative Valence: Traditional Symptom Scores

While reducing symptoms like depression and anxiety is essential, it's not the whole story. Focusing solely on symptom reduction can lead to a narrow view of healing, where the absence of distress is mistaken for genuine well-being.

Focusing solely on symptom reduction may (incorrectly) lead to wellness being defined as simply the absence of disease

Standardized questionnaires can be crucial in measuring disease burden in patients struggling with disease. However, they may not fully capture the richness of a person's inner life and their aspirations for a meaningful existence. This approach can unintentionally neglect essential aspects of positive valence, such as:

• Purpose and Meaning:  Feeling that life has direction and significance.
• Social Connection:  Experiencing a sense of belonging and genuine connection with others.
• Self-Acceptance and Growth:  Embracing a growth mindset.

Conventional antidepressants, for example, do not focus improving these metrics. Instead, they are measured against validated (and often valuable) questionnaires focusing on the presence or absence of negative symptoms, such as feeling bad, feeling down, or feeling tired. Reducing negative valence itself does not lead to increased functioning or quality of life.

Improving Positive Valence: The Missing Link in Medicine

Positive valence encompasses aspects of life that bring joy, fulfillment, and a sense of flourishing. It's about more than "not feeling bad." It's about living a life that aligns with one's values and aspirations. Patients may prioritize these aspects of well-being over mere symptom reduction.

Patients first tell me "I want to feel better" while they later share "I want to feel meaning, connection, and purpose"

When we lose purpose and meaning, critical depression symptoms follow, such as anhedonia or lack of motivation. It's not surprising that increased connection to others and society can support our mental health and well-being.

Our physical health is also affected: loneliness has been associated with alarming cardiovascular, cognitive health harms, and premature death.

Ultimately, patients with depression often wish to prioritize well-being, quality of life, and functioning over simply reducing negative mood. Unfortunately, the goal of "conventional doctors" is to reduce negative mood symptoms (negative valence) rather than addressing patients' wishes to enhance meaning, connection, and joy (positive valence).

Traditional medicine has focused on the absence of negative mood symptoms (negative valence) while most patients actually desire greater meaning and joy (positive valence)

IV Ketamine and SGB: Expanding the Healing Horizon

IV Ketamine and the Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) offer promising paths to enhance positive valence with greater connectedness and meaning in life.

IV Ketamine: A Journey Towards Meaning and Connection

IV Ketamine is a powerful solution for promoting growth, connection, and flexibility. This is in addition to its ability to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. By promoting neuroplasticity, ketamine can help "rewire" the brain, potentially leading to lasting changes in thought patterns and emotional regulation. This can contribute to greater social connectedness, mental well-being, while simultaneously reducing negative valence.

Not only can experiences of expanded consciousness reduce depression and anxiety, but they can also reduce hopelessness, demoralization, and death anxiety. The goal of professionally led and medically supervised IV Ketamine therapy is to enhance mindfulness and self-awareness, allowing for greater insight into one's inner world and facilitating personal growth. The goal of the neuroplastic state is to increase openness to experience, fostering a sense of curiosity and wonder that can sustainably enrich life.

Stellate Ganglion Block: Resetting the Fight-Flight Response

Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) is a powerful tool to "reset" the autonomic nervous system, particularly in individuals struggling with trauma or anxiety. SGB is a procedure that numbs the nerves of our fight-flight response, thereby providing the potential for quieting intrusive thoughts and 0-60 reactions. By reducing hyperarousal, it can create a sense of calm and safety, allowing for greater engagement in therapy and self-exploration. SGB may improve social functioning by reducing the physiological responses associated with social anxiety, leading to increased connection and belonging. PTSD and depression often occur together, and enhancing positive valence is best accomplished by addressing the root causes of these conditions.

These solutions, when integrated with other therapies like psychotherapy and lifestyle changes, can provide a comprehensive approach to healing that addresses both negative and positive valence. They offer hope for a more fulfilling life, one that goes beyond mere symptom relief and embraces the pursuit of meaning, connection, and personal growth. Treating depression, in particular, absolutely requires improving our functioning and going beyond negative valence.

Learn about IV Ketamine and SGB

The decision to pursue IV Ketamine therapy and SGB depends on many factors, including the holistic benefits of treating your mental health. You deserve to learn your treatment options for safe and rapid results. You should always speak with your doctors to learn about the risks and benefits of IV Ketamine therapy and SGB so you can make an informed decision. Learn more about the options for your depression by contacting Clarus Health today.