Meditation works very well for me, for extreme depression and stress..

[HereSince1628]

2. I think meditation can work as a palliative, I've seen reports it can be ameliortive

But, I haven't seen anything to suggest it moves towards resolution/cure of problems.

Anything that effectively distracts attention from affective distress can be useful as a palliative activity. And it's my general opinion that this is the level that meditation is promoted.

Whether or not a person can entrain themselves to alternative affective programs that less frequently enter distressing emotional states via meditation remains something of an open question and may have a lot to do with individual variation and susceptibility/openness.

I'm quite good at using meditative states to step out of stressful events in daily life into states of mind that reduce blood pressure, heart rate, etc. My experience with meditation hasn't done much to make me resilient to the emotional triggers themselves. I can catch myself in the midst of bad experiences and be somewhat effective in recovering from them thru meditative techniques...but the reactions that makes experience seem bad hasn't ever gone away