When you decided to feel better, you probably thought it was a matter of methods.

Do you choose to talk it out in therapy? Or medicate?

After all, they must be very different paths, right?

One seems to steer you toward thought management and the other towards chemically-induced change. Basically, it’s psychotherapy vs. medication.

Actually, things may not need to be quite so black and white.

Psychotherapy vs. Medication: Must you choose?

Who says the two approaches are mutually exclusive?

What if your brain could actually benefit from both initially?

What if a relationship exists between the two that could be cooperative and beneficial, instead of competitors for your healing? Together they might give your brain exactly what it needs.

Consider the truth that your biological brain and your thoughtful, emotional mind are not entirely separate entities. What happens in the mind is rooted in the brain.

Therefore, it stands to reason that mental change most likely facilitates brain change. Due to neural plasticity, or the brain’s ability to adjust and reorganize throughout life, shifts in thinking may very well create new neural pathways and brain changes that will have a lasting effect. Does psychotherapy effect change the way drugs do?

If you look closely at psychotherapy vs. medication, what kinds of brain changes are made? Are both methods two sides of the same coin?

Psychotherapy vs. Medication: Effective Co-workers in the Brain

According to recent studies, analyzed by several researchers based in Italy, the two methods did not have identical effects. Instead, their findings, published in July 2015 in Brain Imaging and Behavior, indicated that the effects of pharmacology and talk therapy actually work best together in a more complementary fashion.

Their comprehensive investigation of multiple studies included nearly 60 experiments.

Lead researcher Maddalena Boccia and her colleagues basically averaged the before treatment and after treatment brain activity patterns in the studies’ participants. This allowed them to determine brain change. They noted there was both some “overlap” in the brain linked to drug and talk therapy treatment, as well as some key, complementary differences.

Psychotherapy vs. Medication: Help for Higher Thinking and Deeper Feeling

Psychotherapy, according to the researchers’ analysis, seems to effect change in the brain’s frontal and temporal cortices, those regions linked to self-interpretation and memory processing. It’s a sort of “top down,” approach say analysts. CBT is useful as it attempts to reshape various misinterpretations and unhelpful thoughts.

Analysis of the scan results for the medicated participants shows heightened activity in the brain’s limbic system and other deeper brain structures. This is where emotional processing occurs, and internal bodily states are recognized. Medication helps alleviate those bodily symptoms people feel when they are depressed like muscle aches, chest pain, or general fatigue. The Italian researchers concluded that drugs take a “bottom up” approach to healing.

So, this isn’t really a question of psychotherapy vs. medication. The two don’t exactly present a double dose of the same kind of help but encourage healing through different channels. It stands to reason that your brain could get the help it needs in lasting ways if the methods are allowed to reinforce each other.

There is a wealth of current research indicating that a combination of antidepressants and psychotherapy helps return the brain to a more normal way of operating. And while there are less conclusive results when it comes to more complex mental illness, depression seems to be significantly helped by this dual approach.

When you decide to feel better, you need all the tools at your disposal.

A therapist and a prescription pad wielded well, can set you and your brain on the healthy path you been longing for.