The WHO has been telling us that depression will soon be overtaking heart disease as the number one cause of disability throughout the world. Just think, all patriotism aside, people are too sad about the situation in their home countries to work for them. Hmm. This is the big cinder-block tied to the ankle to the Health Care Act, that thing the rightists have dubbed “Obama-care”, in the USA as well. If we’re paying for unreal health care, on top of real health care, sustainability has got to become an issue eventually.
Depression is not an illness!
Please, Mad in America, stop reprinting headlines that validate the medical model. Please?
Well, the notion of depression as a syndrome instead of an illness unto itself seems to be a hard one to grasp for some of the psychologically sophisticated as well as for pharmaceutical salespeople. I hope you don’t mind if some of the subsets of the syndrome actually do have medical treatments that aren’t psychiatric. For example, zinc salts are likely to be an important therapeutic for those depressed by their lost of the senses of smell and taste.
Interesting fact: there are many, many more (probably hundreds of thousands or even millions) people taking “antidepressants” worldwide, and yet “depression” is worse than ever! Could there be a connection? Hmmmm…..
Only that the antidepressants are of limited value, the sort of thing to expect if you used them shotgun style, without doing a proper background on your depressed individuals when you first saw them. That method will see the number of depressed rise, as their medications are only good for some of them (and you don’t know which ones) but definitely not all.
All the other commenters have already stated what needs to be said. I will just add and repeat that depression is not an illness.
