Hi Scott,
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy- learning to change your thought patterns to more positive and beneficial ones.
There's lots on this site about it, if you go back to the Home page and look down the options on the left or use the search facility at the top of this page to check previous threads mentioning it.
Medication may give you a break - a bit like the ready brek glow feeling - but you're right, they don't intrinsically change anything so unless you make changes within yourself when you're feeling better enough to do it, often when you come off them the previous issues remain, although just sometimes your life may have moved on and the old issues no longer exist. That's when antidepressants are deemed as being truly sucessful but in reality for most people it buys them time.
CBT with medications is a powerful combination, if it's too hard going it alone. CBT is now proved to very effective alone too. Check it out.
Take good care
Meg
Watch your thoughts, they become your words...
Watch your words, they become your actions... Watch your actions, they become your habits... Watch your habits, they become your character... Watch your character, it becomes your destiny...