Article re: treatment of depression

[pegkerr]

Happiness: Enough Already
The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.

I am trying to figure out why this article upsets me so much. I guess because several members of my family (including me) are on medication for mood disorders. I read this as insinuating that perhaps we are just a little too eager to forego a truly authentic life in exchange for a surcease of the pain of depression. Well, actually, the article is talking about the pain of sadness, which it seems to conflate with depression.

Am I over-reacting? Your reactions?

Comments

[skg.livejournal.com]

I thought the article was arguing that sadness is NOT the same as depression, and that some sadness is normal in life. It uses examples such as a woman whose lover of five years breaks up with her feeling sad, losing appetite, unable to concentrate--and says that given the circumstances, that is NORMAL. But that it is situational and counseling would be the most appropriate first step, not direct to medication.

I believe that if the woman had sadness, loss of appetite and inability to concentrate on her job for an extended period after the breakup, this article would support it as depression and believe medication would be appropriate.

My takeaway was that while there absolutely is depression out there that does need attention and medication in addition to therapy, but that American culture has demonized ANY variety of sadness, even situation appropriate sadness (depressed mood after the death of a parent, an example in the article).

So I thought it was pretty balanced, saying that there is depression and then there is just regular life sadness, and we shouldn't confuse the two.

Am I giving the authors too much credit?

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I read it the same way.