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i am getting a tension headache
9 Sep 2011 05:26 pmFrom all these ridiculous articles I cannot resist clicking on.
Depression? Don't believe it
Literally that is its title.
And it starts out with...
Hey, I agree that depression can be over-diagnosed - but it is also under-diagnosed. I agree that people can be overly medicated for depressed mood (as opposed to actual depression). I agree that there is evidence that psychotherapy and CBT works.
But if the nutcase who wrote the article actually spent some time sitting in a psychiatric ward with some patients instead of reading the DSM from beginning to end and scoffing at it non-stop (and by-the-by, I agree that some of the disorders listed in the DSM borders on defining everyone as abnormal), maybe she'll see that you can never use blanket terms in medicine, and that SSRIs are used because they actually work, not because the "Big Pharma" made up the data.
I remember a lady suffering from terrible anxiety disorder, sitting in her chair quivering non-stop like she had too much caffeine. A week later, after a few ECT sessions, the change was remarkable. She managed to smile. She was sitting at ease. She could hold a conversation looking at us in the eye.
Sit in a room with a severely depressed patient whose countenance never cracks, who stares listlessly at the ground and barely raises the energy to whisper answers to questions...and tell me that their depression is imagined.
Overdiagnosis and overtreatment is a problem with any medical condition, but it is a danger to present the argument without a balanced view, especially with mental health still being a relative taboo in our society.
Depression? Don't believe it
Literally that is its title.
And it starts out with...
In 2000 the World Health Organisation named depression as the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease and predicted that by 2020 it would rise to second place. I suppose WHO didn’t mean it to sound like a target to be aimed for, but we seem to be rising to the challenge in any case.
Hey, I agree that depression can be over-diagnosed - but it is also under-diagnosed. I agree that people can be overly medicated for depressed mood (as opposed to actual depression). I agree that there is evidence that psychotherapy and CBT works.
But if the nutcase who wrote the article actually spent some time sitting in a psychiatric ward with some patients instead of reading the DSM from beginning to end and scoffing at it non-stop (and by-the-by, I agree that some of the disorders listed in the DSM borders on defining everyone as abnormal), maybe she'll see that you can never use blanket terms in medicine, and that SSRIs are used because they actually work, not because the "Big Pharma" made up the data.
I remember a lady suffering from terrible anxiety disorder, sitting in her chair quivering non-stop like she had too much caffeine. A week later, after a few ECT sessions, the change was remarkable. She managed to smile. She was sitting at ease. She could hold a conversation looking at us in the eye.
Sit in a room with a severely depressed patient whose countenance never cracks, who stares listlessly at the ground and barely raises the energy to whisper answers to questions...and tell me that their depression is imagined.
Overdiagnosis and overtreatment is a problem with any medical condition, but it is a danger to present the argument without a balanced view, especially with mental health still being a relative taboo in our society.
