That’s the question a New York Times opinion piece asked last week.

• The suicide rate has been rising in the United States since the beginning of the century, and is now the 10th leading cause of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• The trend most likely has social causes — lack of access to mental health care, economic stress, loneliness and despair, the opioid epidemic, and the unique difficulties facing small-town America.
• While long-term solutions are needed to address these serious problems, the field of psychiatry desperately needs new treatment options for patients.
• And yet no new classes of drugs have been developed to treat depression (and by extension suicidality) in about 30 years, since the advent of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Prozac.
• These can often take weeks to work, as does talking therapy.

The good news is that scientists think that they may have found one — an old anesthetic called ketamine that, at low doses, can halt suicidal thoughts within hours (see my recent article about Dr Carlos Zarate who is pioneering Ketamine research). It works on a different bodily system to the usual SSRI’s.

The article goes on to highlight some ketamine success stories and clinical opportunities as well as some of the problematic side-effects. However, it seems to have some unique ability to reverse acute suicidal ideation and may therefore be used to save lives in these critical hours and minutes, which is cause for much thanksgiving to God. With the Lord’s blessing, perhaps this might be an opening to far more effective anti-depressants. Let’s keep praying for the Lord’s blessing and guidance on Dr Zarate and other medical researchers laboring away for the good of suffering humanity

Blogs

Rethinking the Rat Race
Five reasons you may be overworking.

Overcoming Depression-Anxiety
A series of nine videos from Brad Hambrick.

Friends are for the Darkness
Stephen Altrogge: “If there were a definitive “cure” for clinical depression, I would plunder my bank account to get my hands on it. But after more than twenty years of personally wrestling with the demonic duo of depression and anxiety, I know that no such cure exists.”

Third Millennium Ministries: Seminary Outside the Box
“This summer, Third Mill finished creating enough courses that a pastor anywhere in the world could earn a master’s degree in Bible and theology. From a solid Reformed perspective. For free.”

When we Have to Parent our Parents
Hope and help for caregivers.

Books

Jesus on Every Page $3.49.

The First Days of Jesus $3.99.

Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon, wife of Charles H. Spurgeon $1.99.

Videos

Is the Old Testament Still Relevant for Christians?

I’m sure we all regularly pray for the Lord’s blessing on medical research in the hope that various cures or comforts can be found for various diseases and disorders. I therefore thought you’d be interested in this interview with Dr Carlos Zarate who is at the forefront of medical research into new anti-depressant medications, especially the use of rapid acting ketamine and other related drugs. Some of the highlights:

• In 2016, more than one in twenty American adults and one in ten adolescents experienced at least one major depressive episode.
• For nearly 45,000 of these individuals, their condition was severe enough that it led them to take their own lives.
• Unfortunately, the medications currently available to treat depression are not always effective and can take up to six weeks to substantially reduce symptoms.
• Severe, treatment-resistant or chronic depression is not simply the result of disturbances of serotonin and norepinephrine systems but involves alterations in the resiliency and neuroplasticity of synapses and circuits. So future treatments will also need to enhance the plasticity of synapses and circuits.
• Objective tests for depression are coming closer to public availability, including the identification of biomarkers using blood work and brain imaging.
• Although up until recently, anti-depressants have largely focused on serotonin, the drugs presently in clinical studies are targeting other neurotransmitter systems which can also be involved in depression and therefore offer hope for depression that has been resistant to current drugs.
• The ineffectiveness of some anti-depressants could be more to do with patients missing doses and being inconsistent in their administration.
• The new class of antidepressants being developed are effective in hours rather than weeks.

Let’s keep praying for Dr. Zarate and all medical researchers as they labor daily for breakthroughs in providing relief for suffering people.

Fight the New Drug have recently released three 30-minute films, Brain Heart World, about the impact of pornography on the brain, relationships, and society. The films are extremely well produced with first class graphics, expert interviews, and personal stories. They are free for private viewing, but only until the end of November, if you sign up online here. You can also buy the right to public viewings at $50. This would be a great option for youth groups or other small groups.

If you are addicted to porn you may want to have a look at Fortify (one of the film sponsors) a science-based online recovery tool to help individuals quit pornography.

None of these organizations have any Christian basis as far as I can see, but represent the growing social unease with porn even if only for health and relationship reasons. If used together with Christian counseling, pastoring, and support, the films and other resources could be useful both to prevent and deliver from porn. Just make sure to view the films in their entirety before a public showing to ensure that you can mute or edit any content that might offend your community. The content is quite raw and hard-hitting in places.

I’ve always been a strong supporter of Covenant Eyes. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best digital accountability service I’ve found. I was therefore delighted to read about how they are planning to launch the the next generation of their software that will address some of the obvious weaknesses. For a long time, I’ve believed that the way forward was more along the lines of screen-shotting and therefore I’m delighted to see how they are planning to center their new service around this with a number of safeguards in place. You can watch Covenant Eyes President Ron DeHaas speak about it here and then scroll down to read more of the details. You can also sign up to trial the service.

Pre-1995 the average age kids were allowed outside to play independently (without adults present) was 8-years-old. Post-1995 the average age was 12+. Historically, ages 8-12 was the period kids learned to practice independence. Now it’s much later and kids are not being readied for the outside world, hence the proliferation of “tigger warnings” and the insistence on protection from “hate” speech in college, etc.

See Haidt’s excellent book, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure.

The website he references is letgrow.org.