Is it time to question our reliance—some would say, over-reliance—on antidepressants to ease the pain of depression, which seems to be so common these days?

A 2010 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that anti-depressants such as Paxil are only effective for the most severely depressed patients. Only the most severely depressed were even included in the studies, and only the most depressed among those were found to benefit from the medication.

Is the public being subjected to false advertising? “The important feature of this evidence base is not reflected in the implicit messages present in the marketing of these medications to clinicians and the public,” said the researchers, who studied the results of 6 different studies on the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications.

Despite warnings from experts and research showing anti-depressants aren’t effective except in the most severe cases, usage of feel good pills is booming. Between 1996 and 2005, prescription of antidepressants in the US more than doubled, from 13 million to 27 million. Drug companies quadrupled their spending on direct-to-consumer advertising between 1999 and 2005. Drug companies spent $122 million dollars a year in 2005 to sell $10 billion worth of anti-depressant drugs in 2009.

Why should an alternative to having a tenth of the American population on mood-altering drugs be considered? Our current situation could bear an uncanny resemblance to the drugged and controlled populace described by Aldous Huxley in 1984. In his novel, the public was so addicted and pleased with their use of the drug Huxley called soma that they failed to notice their freedoms and rights were being callously stolen by their own government.

In “My Chemical Romance,” a story of getting off the anti-depressants he’d been using for 10 years without ever demonstrating a clinical need for them, writer Chris Norris describes his months long struggle to live a drug-free existence. Psychiatrist Peter Greggin and sociologist David Karp found that using these drugs can in effect burn out the body’s own ability to produce serotonin, which is essential in preventing depression. In other words, taking anti-depressants could make you much more depressed than you were to start with, if you ever stop taking them.

If there were a cure—or at least treatment–for depression that was effective, had no side effects, and could be used by anyone interested, wouldn’t that merit trying?

Practitioners of an Access Consciousness™ hands on method called “Access Bars™” say there is. Dr. Dain Heer, Co-Creator of Access Consciousness™, publicly credits his first bars session with permanently curing him of suicidal depression. Then a struggling doctor, he used to lie in bed in the mornings planning the date for his own suicide. At his first bars session, he giggled non-stop and never contemplated suicide again.

While the results are not necessarily so instantly dramatic for everyone, Gary Douglas, the discoverer of the Bars and founder of Access Consciousness, states, “The worst that can happen is that you’ll feel more relaxed than after a great massage. The best that can happen is your whole life can change.”

Whether the results from an individual session are dramatic or not, one doctor who frequently receives the bars reports the bars absolutely work for stress relief. “Whatever I’m worried about when I lie down on the table, I can’t hold onto it,” she says. “By the time the hour is up, whatever was bothering me is long gone. It’s great!”

Those who have tried meditation with or without success report that the stillness and inner peace that they seek while trying to “quiet the mind” in meditation is achievable without effort when someone else touches the specific points on their head.

There are 32 of those points, which are activated by simple light touch so simple a child can learn it. In fact, often sessions performed by children are more effective than an adult’s because the kids have fewer preconceptions about what is not possible.

Each of the 32 points relates to an issue that causes us difficulty here on earth—money, control, body, sexuality, healing are just a few of them. Negativity in the form of fixed beliefs, decisions, emotions, and judgments from many lifetimes are electrically stored in these points. Touching these points releases that stored limitation, magically melting away our limitations on the subject and allowing new possibilities we couldn’t see before to appear.

Several doctors who are experts in biofeedback have reported on the brain wave changes they experienced while receiving the bars. They reported moving from beta to alpha into theta brain waves, the waves of the deep relaxed state.

You’ve never heard of the bars, you say? Just how available is this method? Quite available, it turns out. There are currently more than 700 licensed facilitators of the bars—people who have been licensed by Gary Douglas to not only perform a bars session on you, but also to facilitate the day long class in which you can learn to do the bars on yourself and others. These facilitators span 25 countries from the U.S. to India to Turkey to Australia.

Anyone who has completed the bars class once is qualified to perform a session on you if you choose, and Bars classes are offered daily all over the globe.

You can find more information about the Bars, as well as a practitioner near you, by checking the Access Bars™ website, www.bars.accessconsciousness.com.

You can also purchase an online Bars class on Access Consciousness Shop.