Especially for depression, prescribing medications is about stabilizing a patient's mental health and building a safe platform from which the patient can work t

Especially for depression, prescribing medications is about stabilizing a patient's mental health and building a safe platform from which the patient can work to minimize the negative consequences of their depression (or many other mental illnesses, for that matter) on their daily life. No psychiatrist is going to suggest that there's a magic pill, dosage, or regimen that will make the depression go away. What medication can do, though, is help keep a patient's depression from overwhelming them. Ideally, medication gives the patient both time and enough separation from those negative emotions and consequences to make changes that become well-reinforced habits. That can be through traditional talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, simple exercise, changes in diet and sleep patterns, etc. Medication can serve as a sort of barrier between emotions that can overwhelm you and keep you from getting out of bed at all. It doesn't make those feelings go away entirely, but it gives you the breathing room you need. Of course, the public doesn't necessarily see things that way. There's a common belief that the right medication will 'cure' the problem for you or, barring that, make it go away. After all, that's how other medications work! Blood pressure problems? Take a pill. Bacterial infection? Antibiotics, and poof, it's gone! That's a huge problem for psychiatry, and it's one that's probably not going to go away anytime soon. Your GP might be willing to prescribe an antidepressant, an ethical psychiatrist is almost always going to be the better choice precisely because treatment isn't about just receiving a script and heading to the pharmacy.