Alec Ramsdell wrote:
> the effect of making
> > the person quite incapable of placing blame on
> > structures rather than
> > individuals.
>
> Which, I would think, is the case with most mental
> ailments and their treatments. Is this not the case
> with depression?
>
It could be, and probably at times is, but for 15 years now I've associated a lot (in the local Depressive and Manic Depressive Support Group) with sufferers from both bipolar and unipolar affective disorder (the official designations), and this one person with whom I'd worked very closely for several years declared me the lowest of the low because I did not go to the mat with a local bureaucrat when he pulled the plug on a project that in fact was (a) not working and (b) driving me and the other members of the board nuts with the responsibility of it.
Depression can bring about serious explosions of temper, but those are reduced considerably once one realizes that they _are_ depression linked. The deep depression that led me to seek psychiatric help was (seemingly) triggered when I really blew my top at a public meeting. Afterwards, I crossed the street to where my car was parked, got in, and the roof caved in on me. Really deep depression. That was about 16 years ago. Since then only once has there been such an occurrence. (When it happens it makes one act like a fucking weatherman. They thought that was the way a real communist was supposed to act I guess.)
A pure guess. What is now called unipolar affective disorder will at some time in the future be split into a number of distinct illnesses. That is, the term "depression" is used to crush together quite different ailments under the same label. I believe that is a fairly common occurrence in the history of medicine. "Schizophrenia," for example, is now distinguished from "schizoid affective disorder." (Actually, "psychosis" and "neurosis" no longer really name anything. One speaks of psychotic symptoms. Just as one can speak radically different illnessesd all causing headache, so one speaks of radically different psychiatric illnesses as (sometimes) having psychotic symptoms. One friend who suffers from depression has had difficulty with voices a number of times. Neither she nor anyone else is "a psychotic" anymore than anyone is "a headache": she occasionally suffers from a particular psychotic symptom.
Carrol