Neural plasticity hypothesis

The nice thing about the neural-plasticity hypothesis is that it seems to explain so much. In fact, it is a better explanation of the effects of psychotherapy than of drugs. If recovery from depression depends on learning new ways of thinking, then psychotherapy - and especially cognitive behavioural psychotherapy - ought to be effective, and indeed it is, as we shall see in Chapter 7. The... 

The problem with the neural-plasticity hypothesis is that it does not explain how all of these very different treatments -including drugs that are supposed to have biochemical effects that are directly opposite to each other - produce their hypothesized effects on neural networks. In seeming to explain so much, the neural-plasticity hypothesis (at least as it is used as an explanation of antidepressant treatment) may actually explain nothing at all. And if placebos produce changes in neural plasticity, why bother with antidepressant drugs ... 

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