Placebo Versus Antidepressant According to a meta-analysis by psychologist Irving Kirsch and his colleagues (2008), antidepressants work no better than placebos in the treatment of depression for many people. This graph shows improvement for depressed people with varying starting levels of depression—from low depression on the left to high depression on the right. The green line shows improvement for depressed people taking antidepressant medication. The red line shows improvement for depressed people taking placebos. Antidepressants did produce greater improvement for some people, but these differences were only substantial enough to be considered “real” in people with the highest levels of initial depression (area indicated by blue shading).
Source: Data from Kirsch & others (2008).