| Pharmaceuticals are big business. From the | | | | everyday depression, patients are more likely to be |
| prominence of drug manufacturers in the stock market | | | | unnecessarily medicated. |
| to the scores of prescriptions dealt each day by | | | | For their part, pharmaceutical companies have done |
| physicians across the nation, pharmaceuticals touch | | | | their best to ensure that the public is more accepting |
| most Americans through illness, injury or enhancement. | | | | of medication as the first line of treatment. |
| One area where the prescribing of drugs has seen | | | | Advertisements offer pills for every possible malady to |
| major increases over the last several years can be | | | | an eager public, made even more eager by the |
| found is in traditionally psychological treatment. From | | | | promise of instant relief from whatever ails them. This |
| attention deficit disorder medications to selective | | | | is not only a problem with psychological based issues, |
| serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, few problems associated | | | | but with medicine in general. |
| with the mind are left to time or discussion. | | | | The tendency to over-prescribe antibiotics has resulted |
| Many problems associated with the mind can be | | | | in new, resistant strains of life threatening bacteria. |
| better treated through medication, but not all problems | | | | Even over the counter products unrelated to medicine |
| benefit from their use. Still, the psychiatric community | | | | have been created and marketed in an effort to play |
| as a whole can't be blamed entirely for the increase in | | | | upon public fears for increased product sales. |
| prescriptions used to help with depression, anxiety and | | | | Antibacterial soap will stop the majority of germs that |
| other illnesses. Pharmaceutical giants and the medical | | | | can cause illness, but so will the plain old soap people |
| community as a whole have as much or more of | | | | have been using for centuries before it. |
| responsibility for the change in practice. | | | | Ultimately, it's in the hands of the physician to make the |
| Undoubtedly, depression is a medical illness that can | | | | right decision for their patient. Therapy patients who |
| have a crippling effect on certain individuals at various | | | | insist on being referred to a psychiatrist or related M.D. |
| points in their lives. Of equal importance is the fact that | | | | with the intent of being prescribed medication are |
| almost everyone, for one reason or another, | | | | entitled to as many opinions as they want, but until the |
| experiences depression at some juncture. When the | | | | psychiatric community as a whole becomes less willing |
| medical establishment fails to distinguish between | | | | to accommodate those who could be helped without |
| serious bouts of depression such as postpartum, | | | | medication yet still request it, the problem is only going |
| debilitating, and suicidal depression with simple, | | | | to get worse. |