Medication and Therapy: Do I Need Them Both?

With a general rise in our willingness to go to therapists and psychiatrists, more and more of us find ourselves wondering about the importance of both therapy and medication. We may wonder if both are really necessary in the treatment of our mental health issues. The truth is both can be important on their own, but for many of us, the combination of the two are key. 

How can we assess if we need both medication and therapy? By looking at what both medication and therapy can do for us individually, as well as by looking at their limits, we may be able to make a more informed decision as to how to get the best support for our mental health journey. 

What can medication do? 

Medication is based on the biology of our mental illnesses and this is important because some mental health issues are caused by our biology. For instance, depression is found to be heritable, with the likelihood of you being depressed increasing by 40-50% if your family members also suffer from depression. This has been found in research that studies mental health with identical twins who share the same exact genetic makeup as well as in immediate family members. The more severe your family’s depression, the more likely you may be to experience depression as well. Anxiety also runs in our genes, with its inheritability of about 30%, as well as other mental disorders like ADHD, which is one of the most heritable disorders of them all. 

This is not  meant to scare anyone, rather to explain that our biology plays a big role in our mental health. This means that it is only logical that we should take into consideration working with our biology through medication when treating these illnesses. We see that in people with anxiety, depression, OCD, Bipolar, ADHD, and many more, that there are differences in the way our neurotransmitters work. Serotonin, which regulates sleep, pain, and mood, Dopamine, which helps us determine how we perceive reality, Norepinephrine, which impacts our bodies stress response, and Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is supposed to calm anxiety are just a few chemicals whose presence is altered in those of us with mental health illnesses. While therapy can help provide skills to deal with the ways that these chemical differences impact us, sometimes working with medication to stabilize our biology gives a better fighting chance at making the changes we want in therapy. 

ADHD is especially biological in that the ADHD brain functions differently to the neurotypical brain. The frontal lobe that controls our executive functioning simply does not work the way that it does for people without ADHD. And this is absolutely okay, but incorporating medication can be a support to you if your symptomology feels too overwhelming for therapy alone. 

What can therapy do?

Therapy can help treat your symptoms, help you change your behaviors, and help you process and cope with the many ups and downs of life. There are so many ways that therapy alone can make a positive difference in your mental health experience too. For example, a lot of people come into therapy wanting to improve their relationships with other people. It doesn’t always take medication to do that. Working on communication skills, boundaries, ways to regulate our minds and bodies, and developing insight into our reactions and behaviors are all effective measures for improvement in your relationships. 

Likewise, many of us are looking to improve our anxiety and depression in ways that go beyond medication. Working with a therapist can help us to learn how to alter our negative thinking patterns, to develop compassion for ourselves and others, to identify and manage triggers, and to learn skills to better take care of ourselves. ADHD is another great example of why therapy is an important part of treatment. While there are biological differences, there are so many skills you can learn with a therapist on how to work with your ADHD brain rather than to work against it, trying to do things in the same way that everyone else does and failing at it. 

Processing grief and trauma is another area where therapy is essential. There are no drugs that can fully take away the pain of death or the impact of trauma. It is crucial that we process and talk about these things because what we resist will persist! Therapy can be the safe space you need to work through these tough times and memories. It is only by working through these things that we can heal from them. 

Is it best to use medication and therapy?

This is for you, your therapist, and psychiatrist to access. For many of us, this combination is the best chance we have at making the progress and improvement we want. Sometimes we require the stability we get from medication to be able to make the changes we want in therapy sessions. There is never shame in needing both of these forms of support, that’s why they both exist. When we are open to the positive impact that either medication or therapy can have for us, we open ourselves up to an even wider range of possibilities for healing and growth. Remember that neither medication or therapy have to be forever, but they shouldn’t be never if you need it now.