Click those blues away

Internet support sites can help you overcome depression, says a new study. But only if you've been through therapy already.

My personal experience of the support site, www.social-anxiety.org.uk, is that alot of people go there for a serious moan, and to agree with each other's moans about how unfair and harsh the world is, rather than to try and help each other to change.

But such sites are definitely useful. They put people in touch with support groups, with CBT groups, with information about their condition. It is giving the power to the individual, to the sufferer, empowering them to find out about their condition and learn how to overcome it, rather than the Freudian model of therapy, where it all depends on the mysterious intermediary power and Gnostic wisdom of the analyst.