In the original article Hari doesn't claim depression is always caused by life events. Rather he says this: "The more I investigated depression and anxiety, th

In the original article Hari doesn't claim depression is always caused by life events. Rather he says this: "The more I investigated depression and anxiety, the more I found that, far from being caused by a spontaneously malfunctioning brain, depression and anxiety are mostly being caused by events in our lives." Emphasis on _mostly_. At least in the article above, Hari never claimed life events were the sole cause of depression. But he did claim---in my experience accurately---that doctors around the world push the idea that depression does have a single cause, "chemical imbalance". My doctor never asked what was going on in my life---and there was plenty. He just gave me drugs and told me I'd have to take them for the rest of my life. That story is very common, and that's why I find value in an article like Hari's. And the mischaracterization of normal human reactions to painful life events as "illness" is odious to me. It's like saying a suffocating person is "ill" because they're not doing well without oxygen.