Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 26th, 2021, 5:37 pmSeemingly you are mixing up the illness which is called 'Depression' with the commonly used term of 'depression' when people say "I am depressed". It is easy for one to say that one is depressed when they are too sad and feel like they have no energy to anything. But there is an actual psychiatric illness which is called 'Depression', which has a specific diagnostic criteria and specific drugs to treat. Better not to mix up the two unless you want to worsen the condition of someone who is in actual need of help.LuckyR wrote: ↑May 26th, 2021, 11:59 amI am suggesting the possibility that once upun a time people got sad for specific reasons. Now they no longer try to understand those reasons when they can reach for a pill.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑May 26th, 2021, 7:23 amYou aren't trying to imply that India is immune to depression, are you?Sushan wrote: ↑May 25th, 2021, 10:42 pmAnd your point is what....?
In extremes, anything can be a mental disorder. But not everything that are extreme categorized as mental disorders. And that is why specific mental disorders are given specific diagnostic criteria. Otherwise a man's personality trait will be named as a psychiatric disorder. This is similar for the meanings of the words. Yes, their meanings can be changed. But technical terms are not subjected for change of the meaning because it will definitely harm the practices that use those words in a technical way. And also naming religious beliefs as delusions is quite Narcistic, which is a personality trait as well.
Parmaceuticals are in the business of inventing mental illnesses, and exporting them as ideas to poorer countries and emerging markets.
They call it exporting a category. India was the recent reciepent of such an export in the matter of "depression" - a category previously unheard of in times past. Now it is highly fashionable to obtain various kinds of anteprepressants, which Pharma have been only too happy to supply by the ship load.
Back on topic. Religion is much the same; it validates a system of bad thinking, making okay to ignore reason and accept faith as an alternative.
Humans managed for 100,000 years without obsessing over this and many other categories.
WHy reflect upon how to improve your life when you can just drop a Valium.
I get depressed. I take steps to improve. I do not make a fetish out of my illness, and get on with things without the "help" (ahem!) of drugs.
– William James