Welcome to the website of the
Prof. Dr. Anton J.M. Loonen
Foundation
Welcome to the website of the Prof. Dr Anton J.M. Loonen Foundation.
This is the ninth blog post on this website. In 2025, I wrote a commentary on the article by Kennedy et al. in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. I have further developed my ideas in a commentary for Pharmacopsychiatry. This article was initially rejected, but was eventually published online in April 2026 behind a paywall as a letter to the editor. It is now an open-access article and, as such, is also included under ‘Publications’ on this website.
A key part of the argument is that people recover from depression through the action of a natural resilience mechanism. Various forms of therapy – psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy and various other biological therapies – can all bring about recovery from depression. It can therefore be postulated that there is a universal mechanism for overcoming a pathologically low mood and carrying on with life as normal. This was devised by researchers at the University of Zurich and published in 2007 (doi: 10.4088/jcp.v68n0805). That idea really appeals to me and is also in line with the thinking of most clinicians.
It also means that depressive disorder need not have a single, clear-cut cause that all forms of therapy address in one way or another. According to this model, the cause of depression and its treatment are usually separate from one another. All sorts of factors (genetic, environmental, social and psychological) can cause depression, and all sorts of mechanisms can bring natural resilience to the fore. This is certainly a very interesting idea.
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