In the past treatment of depression was done by many different types of talk therapy by psychologists. There are over 250 psychotherapy "techniques", and NONE of them have been proven to work any better than any other.

But, the fact remains that very few depressed patients were ever "cured" by talk type psychotherapy. As a matter of fact, it has been shown in several studies that talking to a sympathetic friend, even a bartender, or almost anyone who will listen is about as good as talking to a clinician (at $100 up per hour).

The APA has neatly classified several different types of depression (manic, bipolar, unipolar, post-partum, grief, etc - mostly for the purposes of legally making them covered by health insurance.)

Psychiatrists would seem to have somewhat of an advantage here. They have the battery of drugs that "seem" to help depressed persons at least get thru life without too many suicides from depression. Here's another fact. Nobody ever got depressed because of poor toilet training as a child. Freud had a lot of good ideas, but this wasn't one of them. There's been a lot written about stress causing depression, and stress is a component (as poor toilet training may be). But, it doesn't CAUSE depression directly.

So, just what does cause depression?

The Orthomolecular Theory and my experience in taught me that there were three basic causes of depression. Clearing up these "stresses" cleared up the patient's ability to withstand the normal stress of everyday living as well as the heavy stresses put on some at times.

These three basic causes are:

-Mineral Toxicity (perhaps 10-15%)

-Nutritional Deficiency (perhaps 15-20%

-Allergies and Other Stress Factors (perhaps 75-85%)

The following is pretty brief, and my book "The Health Revolution" has much more information and actual case studies of many different types of depression and anxiety, etc. It also describes the actual therapy I used in each case, and how it worked. This book may be fond at:

http://Alternate-Health.com/health.html

Mineral Toxicity

There are several minerals that may cause depression (at toxic levels) directly. These include toxic levels of mercury, copper, lead, and others. (In the case of copper, medium toxic levels of copper can cause depression, and higher levels may cause schizophrenia.) Lead is still a problem, but becoming less likely due to removing it from gasoline and paint. I even had one patient with arsenic causing depression.

Nutritional Deficiency

As mentioned above, almost every kind of stress causes the body to use up various vitamins and minerals faster. This means that when you are under unusual stress, you should be taking more vitamins.

Allergies and Stress

Now we come to the real meat. Allergy! Or, more precisely, both allergies and/or food/chemical sensitivities. To allergists, they are two separate problems, and until recently, few MD allergists even considered food sensitivity at all. Both allergy and sensitivity can cause all the same symptoms/disease as the other. Ranging from schizophrenia and depression to hyperactivity and bedwetting, arthritis and skin itching. The list of potential symptoms of allergy and/or sensitivity is as long as your arm.. It surprises many people that most of the "brain problems" of depression, ADD/ADHD, schizophrenia, epilepsy, etc can be, and often are caused by allergy and/or sensitivity.

Talk about stress. Either allergy or sensitivity causes huge stress to the body, and stress is additive. So, if you have an emotional strain in your life at the same time as an allergen is affecting you, the overall stress becomes much more, and your body needs much more in the way of good nutrition to help get thru this stressful period. Post Partum Depression and PMS are often examples of additive stress.

In virtually every depressed patient I ever saw in my practice the depression "lifted" when the combination of stress from allergy and/or mineral toxicity was dealt with. (I estimate about 80% allergy/sensitivity and 20% mineral toxicity with a lot of overlap.) By curing the underlying physical problem, the "ordinary" stress of modern life can be dealt with.

I should mention at this point that whenever I saw a depression patient for the first time, I immediately started them on what I called "Immediate Relief". This was a combination of 500 mg of Tryptophan, and 500 mg of Tyrosine - from 1-3 times per day along with at least 50 mg B complex at the same time. None of these cause any side effects (unless you are allergic to capsules or some of the "fillers" used.) This helped to lift their depression during the search for the underlying problem, and helped defuse thoughts about suicide. There are now nutritional supplements with these combinations on the market.

Neu-Becalm'd is the one that I recommend. Info about Neu-Becalm'd can be found at: http://www.StressTalk.com

In April 2002, I leased two EEG biofeedback units to two different people that have reported back to me. One, was a suicidal and depressed young man. With 40 1/2 hour sessions, he has completely turned around, and is quite normal. No depression symptoms at all. The other was an older woman, and she reported that after training her son (ADD/ADHD), she felt much better just watching him train, so she did sessions herself. She didn't report how many, but not only was her son free of his ADD/ADHD symptoms, but her depression was gone as well. (Since that was written, many more cases have been successful.)

Dr Von Hilsheimer reports 100% success with all types of depression in his biofeedback practice in Orlando Florida. How does it work? My theory first voiced to Dr Von in 2000 is that this EEG BF training somehow trains the brain to change the effect of some allergens on the brain/body. My first test of the Bate Auditory Training system proved that this theory is at least partially correct. Many of the people in this test lost several allergies/sensitivities.

The Bate Auditory BrainWave Training System

In 2004, I realized that if EEG Biofeedback (neurofeedback) could solve various "brain problems" such as: ADD/ADHD, Autism, depression, insomnia, etc, by simply changing some specific brain wave bands, then it should be possible to do the same thing using passive audio. I made up a test audio, and tested it on over 40 volunteers (who all paid to take part in this test). The results were mixed, but overall it proved that raising one brain wave (called SMR) did change the allergen effect(s) on the brain. Every depressed person, and every person with Insomnia who used the audio for more than a month solved their problems. (Insomnia/sleep problems is often a component of depression.)

Since I only used the audio message to raise the SMR brain wave, there were some ADD/ADHD persons who did not get as much benefit as hoped. (Included in this test were 3 kids that hadn't been helped by EEG biofeedback, and they weren't helped by this audio either). (I knew that NASA had found that lowering the Theta brain wave increased attention/concentration.)

In 2005, I devised a new audio that included lowering of the Theta brain wave as well as raising the SMR brain wave. This was also tested on over 40 participants, most of whom paid up to $100 each. Every ADD/ADHD person tested, (who used the audio for over 6 weeks) improved dramatically. Even some autistic kids did very well, and the parents are continuing it's use.

I cannot, and do not claim that the Bate Auditory BrainWave Training system will "cure" any brain problems, but to date, I can state that this system has solved a very high percentage of such problems, comparable to EEG biofeedback (estimated by most at around 85%) at a fraction of the cost.