Too many people are being diagnosed with depression when they are merely unhappy, a senior psychiatrist said today.

Depression is over-diagnosed, psychiatrist claims - Guardian

Extract:

"Too many people are being diagnosed with depression when they are merely unhappy, a senior psychiatrist said today.

Normal emotions are sometimes being treated as mental illness because the threshold for clinical depression is too low, according to Professor Gordon Parker.

Prof Parker said depression had become a "catch-all" diagnosis, driven by clever marketing from pharmaceutical companies and leading to the burgeoning prescription of antidepressant drugs.

Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), he said the drugs were being marketed beyond their "true utility" in cases in which people were unhappy rather than clinically depressed.

The psychiatrist, of the University of New South Wales, Australia, said the "over-diagnosis" of depression began in the early 80s, when the diagnostic threshold for minor mood disorders was lowered."

Thank goodness Professor Gordon Parker is injecting a bit of sense into this matter! - The mental health charity, MIND, found that a walk in the country works well as an antidepressant - http://www.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2079804,00.html - and it's certainly safer than psychotropic drugs. These pharmaceutical 'therapies' benefit no-one but the drug companies who manufacture and market them with extravagant claims for their efficacy and dubious claims for their safety.

One of the frequent adverse side-effects of antidepressants, especially tricyclics like amitriptyline, is massive weight gain, which is particularly ironic since overweight is associated with depression, and sensible doctors should be aware of this and hold back on their habitual recourse to prescribing tablets instead of trying to help with the problem.

Instead of the nonsensical and clearly unprovable claim made by most doctors that antidepressants save lives, read any of the sensible contributions on the subject by Dr David Healy, one of which is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3675878.stm . And read http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/ for more information about the great harm that the reckless over-prescribing of these drugs is causing.


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