a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3635 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is depression a kind of allergic reaction?

Yes! Great post.

"Depression" is the sort of word that is very misleading and completely unhelpful when it comes to making people healthier. Give it a name, "something syndrome" -- as indeed many doctors are trying to do -- and suddenly it becomes something people can have, something doctors can understand and treat with drugs. As opposed to everyone freaking out and trying to psychoanalyze shit.

My grandfather, who reads all the medical journals as a hobby, updated me on this a couple weeks ago. He buys into the immune system explanation. Freud set us back by 100 years when it comes to the language we use to talk about mental health, the solutions we try and the attitude we have toward the whole thing. Can't let that drag on us all the way into the 21st century.