There are few studies on the effects of antidepressants on aspects of love beyond libido and sexual performance. But in an intriguing experiment, one Canadian psychologist, Maryanne Fisher (no relation to Helen), reported evidence in a small 2004 study of what she termed "courtship blunting" in women taking antidepressants.
Asked to rate the attractiveness of men's faces, women taking the drugs rated the men more negatively, and breezed through the pictures faster than women not on antidepressants.
There is also anecdotal evidence -- and although such stories may be anathema to hard science, they can provide the basis for research questions. Thomson collects them.
A 20-year-old man who had been on antidepressants from the ages of 15 to 18 was reluctant to take them again, despite feeling depressed. "No one told him about the sexual side effects. In retrospect, he realized he had the sexual side effects and that might have contributed to his not dating," Thomson says.
Any drug that has sexual side effects, Thomson says, could well blunt other chemicals the brain uses to intently focus on one person or to work up the obsession necessary to fall in love in the first place.
Then there was the 42-year-old single woman who had not been on a date in the eight years she had been taking an antidepressant. "She had not felt any desire [to date] for at least that period of time," he says.
Jerry Frankel, a urologist from Plano, Texas, who's been married for more than 40 years, was so conflicted about his experience on antidepressants he wrote to a national newspaper.
"My usual enthusiasm for life was replaced by blandness," he wrote. "My romantic feelings for my wife declined dramatically." He was willing to risk depression again in order to regain his old zest for romantic depth.
Fisher and Thomson's theory is new enough that many therapists say they've never heard it discussed.
But Richard Tuch, psychoanalyst at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, says he has long been concerned, especially for adolescents, that if pharmaceuticals interfere with sexuality, they may also be interfering with a basic system that teens require to learn about the opposite sex. Still, he's cautious about sounding an alarm. "Antidepressants can save a person's life," he says.
