antidepressants Archives

Before We Hurry to Silence It, We Should Listen to What It Has to Say

A man lost in a dark forest — If depression is a journey, recovery cannot always mean returning to the starting place.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Grief knows its object. Depression often does not. But that does not mean that depression is always meaningless suffering. Often, it is suffering whose meaning is asking to be discovered.

Still, we must be careful not to romanticise depression. Depression can be a disabling, even deadly, illness. Such depression requires urgent and intensive treatment. But neither should the most severe cases determine how we understand all depression.

Diagnosis

Today, in England, around one person in six is prescribed antidepressants. Numbers on this scale should make us ask: is this all mental illness, that is, a biological disorder of the brain, or is it also a problem with modern life?

If at least some depression arises from a problem of living, then the depression is pointing straight at the problem. By treating it as a biological disorder of the brain, we are hiding the problem and prolonging the pain. Our depression may be telling us, look, something here is seriously wrong, something here has to change, you can’t go on like this.

Treatment

Treatment cannot simply aim at silencing it. If a fire alarm is sounding, disabling the alarm may bring relief—but it does not put out the fire.

Instead, treatment should be more like an exploration and journey. Already in the thirteenth century, Dante gave us the right image. At the beginning of Inferno, he finds himself alone in a dark forest, having lost the straight path. The forest is dark and dangerous. Yet the only way out is through it.

If depression is a journey, recovery cannot always mean returning to the starting place. Because the starting place may have been the problem.

Depression can be an illness, but it can also be a form of intelligence. Before we hurry to silence it, we should listen to what it has to say.