> If your point is that it would be better if we had better drugs then I agree.

My point is that there are other interventions which do have an effect size over the perceptual threshold. Exercise is a big one, but there are lots - sleep deprivation, intensive therapy, the esketamine class, TMS, ECT in extremis, (nature exposure and other seeming woo like that need study but are promising) are all significantly better than handing someone an SSRI. And many of those don't have the withdrawal symptom and side effects under treatment that SSRIs do. People are, in aggregate, being harmed by SSRIs displacing things that work right now, and also displacing the urgency of new drug development in the space.

The gap is that, in an acute treatment setting, people are being handed a drug that cannot be effective for at least a week or two, up to 6-8 weeks, instead of drugs that work in hours or days.