>>
>>Reese
>
>The problem is that opinions like yours, Reese, will make it difficult for
>people to afford medicines & other forms of treatment if they become
>doxa. HMOs & insurance companies will be happy to make "a couple of laps
>around the bloc" (which would cost them nothing) a standard treatment for
>clinical depression and other mental illnesses if they can get away with
>it. The idea that mental illness is not in fact an "illness" but a moral
>problem of laziness (for instance, unwillingness to stay physically
>active) constitutes a political obstacle for sufferers.
>
>Yoshie
uh no. that's not the claim. the claim was that we treat it in a medicalized way, small d depression. small d depression, as carrol has said, probably shouldn't be treated with medications. it may well be better for that sort of depression to be treated with multifaceted therapies involving diet, sunshine, exercise, therapy, etc. in that case, given the resistance that is ostensibly embedded in small d depression then they'd actually have to spend more to ensure that those treatments were carried out.
and like i said, i've been there and almost died from the prozac some asshole carelessly prescribed, because i'm one of those people who react badly to it. it, in some cases, causes people to go a little bit more nuts. and doug and catherine i believe, as well as others, actually got to witness some of my behavior last year.
at any rate, as for small d depress, for me, a lot of it is almost very conscious, the decision to sit around and mope rather than deal. tough luck if folks don't like that position, that was *my* experience, the experience of taking what talcott parsons called "the sick role" and actually almost actually enjoying being depressed or, at least, ina ctive. after over a decade of school, job, family, and several family tragedies, i wanted an excuse to sit on my ass! i hated it when people told me to get off my ass and do something, and i resisted like mad, feeling just like carrol described: no ambition otherwise, but once i did i felt 100% better. the temptation to regress however was big.
so, actually, i think that medicalizing and treating small d depression in the way it might need to be dealt with would actually cost more since you'd have to actually supervise the exercise, diet, etc.
not that the medical establishment does a whole to make sure people are taking their meds properly as it is now.
kelley, who's 83 year old mother in law was on 15 diff kinds of meds and one of them was prescription strength dramamine prescriped for her dizziness!