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Depression and unhappiness.Where is the difference?

 


 New blog added 06th October 2014

Very interesting discussion on Sunday Morning Live on BBC 1 discussing‪#‎depression‬ and the blurring of lines between plain unhappiness and depression and the health system's apparent inability to make truly valid assessments where GP's may inadvertently incorrectly diagnose depression and hand out anti depression medication because of a lack of understanding of any clear distinctions between the two. What is interesting is this case is presented by retired psychiatrist and writer  Theodore Dalrymple and I think he does have a case based upon some of the evidence presented. According to Mr Dalrymple there is no biological marker for establishing the difference between unhappiness and depression.

                                

Essentially the recognition is that unhappiness and depression is about emotional responses to life events and our reactions to them, when events happen to people that bring about depression it can be a whole chain of events over many years culminating in emotional turmoil and unhappiness and a feeling of being unable to cope or a single traumatising event such as with PTSD or natural events such as PND. Undoubtedly there may be chemical changes in the body that anti depressant's seek to compensate for.


What is interesting and worrying is that in England fifteen million anti depressant's alone were dispensed in 1998 and by 2012 the figure had risen to forty million. No doubt this figure is affected by the current financial crisis that makes day to day living so difficult for millions of people both in work and out of work. Stress is the modern disease of our times. 
The fact that so much medication is dispensed is an enormous burden on the health service and I am sure that if talking therapies and hypnotherapy were widely available on the NHS with appointed practitioners working within the frame work that there would be more benefit for sufferers being given choice as evidenced by one contributor who describes her experience with anxiety being assessed by her doctor as a quick diagnosis for medication for controlling anxiety without the doctor finding anything out about her life history. 


Fortunately she had the resources to fund private treatment for talking therapies. I think an interesting outcome of this discussion agrees that talking therapies are of great importance in recovery and resolution and that it should be more widely available,i.e. on the NHS and that talking therapies would probably be faster to help sufferers to overcome depression and. much cheaper than endless anti depressant medication with all of its various side effects.

 

 

Also that in society we need to educate and shift peopled perceptions about the whole person being treated rather than just the mind as the two are obviously linked, i.e, patients with a serious physical illness or life changing trauma who may be suffering from depression which may well most likely be a natural by product of their condition and who believe that their GP in suggesting they are suffering from depression conclude that their GP thinks that it is all in their mind. From experience I know that is can be a very contentious issue as it very much depends on the how the GP communicates and with only ten minute slots these days it can be very difficult to expand the conversation. 
GP's are under enormous pressures too, but I think most people will agree that once their is an understanding that the whole person needs to be treated and that endless anti depressant's are not the whole answer then we will start making real progress in mental health issues.


Also we as a society need to de-stigmatise depression as most people experience depression at some time in their lives. In the world of life insurance a declaration of suffering from depression may have significant consequences to levels of cover or whether you may be insured at all and as also can a knowledge of depression by an employer be harmful to ones employment prospects if the employer decides that there is a problem. Yes there are welfare laws in place, but (a) employers can and do often flaunt the law and (b) the cost emotionally of fighting something happening like this is likely to be very high indeed.

The fact that a person suffers from depression can present genuine and worrying possibilities for an employer as to the safety of the employee carrying out their duties and the safety of other people in the care of the employee, however depression should not be a reason for writing someone off as being totally and completely incapable of doing their job. 


Depression is treatable and manageable and it occurs to me having watched Sunday morning live that there are some excellent efforts being made by individuals, bodies and organisations, into trying to educate society to understand depression and that it doesn't mean that people suffering with it are somehow faulty and to be marginalised away from society

Trevor Wales Dip.Hyp.GQHP.BWRT.GHR.CRSST.CNHC.

 


 

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