Trusting your GP: does depression epidemic reflect society?
Depression has become an epidemic over the past 30 years. Does it reflect massive social and economic change?
Social change explains the Depression Epidemic
We know that antidepressants, do not do what they say on the tin. And the attempts to elevate CBT as the best talking therapy for depression is not proving too successful. So is the depression epidemic best explained by rapid social change?
Three reasons for caution: your GP and depression
- The evidence is clear – antidepressants don’t work that well.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on the NHS is not delivering and there are very good reasons why that is the case.
- Our depression epidemic has to have a social dimension and doctors cannot be expected to help – afterall, that is not their job.
Our depression epidemic has to have a social dimension and doctors cannot be expected to help – that is not their job
Did you know that ten times more people suffer from depression now than immediately after the last war? Given this and the rapid social and economic changes over this period, especially in the last twenty years, surely this must be the main part of the explanation for the depression epidemic?
There is a social dimension to our western depression epidemic (which we are told will affect one in four of us at least once in our life time).
The NHS deals with bodies not social trends. But we are asking the NHS to deal with the consequences of the nation’s social problems. Such as the stress of modern life and increasing materialism. And add to that the breakdown of family and community, the increasing dependence on the state and, globalisation…and so on.
You can write down your own list.
But perhaps we should not be looking at the NHS for the reasons why they are being asked to deal with something beyond their competence. Instead we should be looking at ourselves and why we are asking them?
We have serious social issues around social care for the elderly, an underclass that cannot properly participate in society and that has fuelled an apparent epidemic of mental problems – notably depression, but also addictions and anxieties. Who among us can honestly say, hand on heart, that these problems are medical and to be sorted out by the NHS or doctors?
What you can do now?
The first amazing thing is to appreciate that the long wait is over. Along has come a credible explanation for depression from the Human Givens. That depression is about ruminating and dreaming too much – non medical for sure but fitting in perfectly with the idea that social change is part of the reasons for our depression epidemic.
And that what all humans require is to be living a life where they re getting their emotional needs well met.
It may not answer every question or explain every depression, but it so much better than what is out there now.
In this post, I expand on the weak evidence in support of antidepressants.
In this post, you will learn of the failures and weaknesses of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
https://andrewmrichardson.co.uk/2021/03/18/depression-symptoms-long-lists/
