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In this post I would like to address the issue psychopharmacology vs. therapy.
In this post I would like to address the issue psychopharmacology vs. therapy.
There is a common misconception that if someone is depressed it is because there is something wrong with their brain chemistry and they need to take medicine to “cure” it.
A few years ago, I visited a friend of mine in the States and I was taken aback by the amount of advertising on TV dedicated to prescription drugs, especially antidepressants. The number of people who take this type of medicine in the western world is much higher than in the rest of the world. Is it because people get less depressed in other parts of the world or is it because they do not have access to those medicines?
Depression is a 'sickness' of modern living. Statistical data shows us that depression rates are twice as high in urban areas as in the countryside. Also, in places where daily survival is the rule, there is no such a thing as depression. People who live in hostile environments, where they need to walk a certain amount of time just to get water, do not get depressed like we do in the first world.
However, we, creatures of the modern world with mobiles phones, high-tech devices and plenty of water and food at our disposal, do get depressed, stressed and anxious. Some people blame the existence of these feelings to our brain chemistry.
