[bvvg]

> Common mental illnesses - particularly depression and anxiety - have incredibly high placebo response rates.

In my experience, both long term, major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder only substantially improve through understanding, which of course is realized in at least 2 ways: experience and/or therapy.

We can say with some certainty that antidepressants' effectiveness is questionable, at best, long term, but of particular interest for effective indication would be any number of psychoactive substances, which routinely make headlines for this type of treatment but remain taboo for some still yet to be resolved reasons.

Of course this ultimately boils down to personal choices, but attitudes towards drugs will change before we see any real progress in this area, I'm afraid.