Part of the problem is how doctors, and especially psychiatrists, have approached treating depression. There are many people who simply get down once in a whil

Part of the problem is how doctors, and especially psychiatrists, have approached treating depression. There are many people who simply get down once in a while, in response to a particular event or series of events, the way most of us do at some point in our lives. If these people come across a psychiatrist, there's a decent chance they will end up on anti depressants when they likely just need some counseling and time. They should not be classified as depressed, maybe a transient mood disorder, but who knows if insurance would pay for that. That takes away from people who truly suffer from clinical depression, a real medical condition which should be separately classified as such. If you throw them into the basket of people who are just down once in a while, you do them a great disservice, because society then looks at them as someone who just can't deal with issues and need a crutch in the form of medications. The people with real clinical depression are the ones who are at risk of committing suicide. Psychiatrists can figure out which is which usually, not always, but instead they treat everyone the same, and as a result less time is spent on those who need it the most (unless they end up getting hospitalized)