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In fairness, you don't know what your life would have been like without them. I'm not second guessing your personal judgment, which must include a million facto

In fairness, you don't know what your life would have been like without them. I'm not second guessing your personal judgment, which must include a million factors I have no idea about (and it's not my business), but I don't think that kind of comment is conclusive. > I was just struggling with a transitional period in my life Why shouldn't that cause serious depression, and why shouldn't someone need antidepressants for it?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
I guess... but you can get away with questioning my personal judgment. What if you went around to all the comments here saying "it definitely saved my life" and questioned their judgment? Maybe it's those people who don't realize their ability to beat depression without medication. To your second point I would say that a struggle shouldn't necessitate a clinical diagnosis. Life is full of struggle, and equating struggle to depression to medication is why we're in the overprescription business in the first place.
- hackuser 9y ago
  Again, I'm not questioning your judgment. Sorry if you feel that way; I'd delete the comment now if I could. I wouldn't question other people either, and especially, for obvious reasons, I wouldn't question the people you mention. > I would say that a struggle shouldn't necessitate a clinical diagnosis. Life is full of struggle, and equating struggle to depression to medication is why we're in the overprescription business in the first place. I know critics repeat that narrative often but I haven't seen evidence of it actually happening. That is, I haven't heard anyone say, 'struggle is a sufficient condition for the diagnosis of depression', and I'm almost certain that the standards for diagnosis in psychology/psychiatry are much higher than that. > overprescription I'm not sure that's true either. Certainly there are always some false positives, but what is the rate? The evidence does indicate there are very many false negatives, people who need help and are not getting it. I suspect the narrative of overprescription for psychological conditions is based in part on two things: 1) People with preconceived negative attitudes toward mental health care, and 2) variation from the norm they are accustomed to, which is that few or no people received mental health treatment. Regarding the latter reason, perhaps there was a problem with the old norm; perhaps many more people need mental health care than we knew. When there is a new treatment for cancer, we don't say 'it's overprescribed; in the old days we toughed it out.' We don't say that about lead in water. If it's helping people, it's a good thing, and I want to society to move forward, for people to be healthier and happier and not be stuck in the conditions of the 1970s (or whatever the baseline is).

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

I guess... but you can get away with questioning my personal judgment. What if you went around to all the comments here saying "it definitely saved my life" and questioned their judgment? Maybe it's those people who don't realize their ability to beat depression without medication. To your second point I would say that a struggle shouldn't necessitate a clinical diagnosis. Life is full of struggle, and equating struggle to depression to medication is why we're in the overprescription business in the first place.

hackuser 9y ago
Again, I'm not questioning your judgment. Sorry if you feel that way; I'd delete the comment now if I could. I wouldn't question other people either, and especially, for obvious reasons, I wouldn't question the people you mention. > I would say that a struggle shouldn't necessitate a clinical diagnosis. Life is full of struggle, and equating struggle to depression to medication is why we're in the overprescription business in the first place. I know critics repeat that narrative often but I haven't seen evidence of it actually happening. That is, I haven't heard anyone say, 'struggle is a sufficient condition for the diagnosis of depression', and I'm almost certain that the standards for diagnosis in psychology/psychiatry are much higher than that. > overprescription I'm not sure that's true either. Certainly there are always some false positives, but what is the rate? The evidence does indicate there are very many false negatives, people who need help and are not getting it. I suspect the narrative of overprescription for psychological conditions is based in part on two things: 1) People with preconceived negative attitudes toward mental health care, and 2) variation from the norm they are accustomed to, which is that few or no people received mental health treatment. Regarding the latter reason, perhaps there was a problem with the old norm; perhaps many more people need mental health care than we knew. When there is a new treatment for cancer, we don't say 'it's overprescribed; in the old days we toughed it out.' We don't say that about lead in water. If it's helping people, it's a good thing, and I want to society to move forward, for people to be healthier and happier and not be stuck in the conditions of the 1970s (or whatever the baseline is).