The Truth about Dragons

St. George in unstained glass.

A friend on Facebook recently posted an article on “Ten Natural Treatments for Depression.” As with most such articles, it is wrong and includes bad advice.

Beginning with the first paragraph:

“Depression is a mental health disorder resulting from chemical imbalances of the brain. It is not a personal defect, failure, or weakness. Rather, it is a medical issue, plain and simple. And, as with any other medical condition, depression requires diagnosis and treatment.”

It is meaningless, to begin with, to say depression results from “chemical imbalances of the brain.” The assertion tells us nothing. What cases the chemical imbalances?

This is like saying psoriasis is caused by a skin rash.

But it’s worse. “Chemical imbalance” itself is only pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. What might constitute a proper “balance of chemicals”? What does the phrase even mean?

Suppose some specific chemical were found in higher proportion in the brains of those experiencing depression than in the general population. This cannot establish cause and effect. Did the chemical cause the thoughts, or did the thoughts cause the chemical?

It is all only a survival of an ancient pseudo-medical myth, the theory of the humours.

“It is not a personal defect, failure, or weakness. Rather, it is a medical issue, plain and simple.”

This is the fallacy of the false alternative. There are not only two choices here, either personal defect or disease. Suppose someone runs into you with their car; is that either your personal defect or purely a medical issue?

It seems the reality is being deliberately avoided; otherwise why ignore one obvious possibility? Why is it impossible that depression be caused by environment? Isn’t it just common sense that it often, if not always, is?

“As with any other medical condition, depression requires diagnosis and treatment.”

This implies that diagnosis and treatment will help. Sadly, whether the current medical treatments for depression do is still highly debatable in medical or scientific terms. There is some survey evidence that people do better if they do not seek such treatment.

Realizing all this may well make you even more depressed. But telling lies is not going to help.

In fact, there are effective ways to fight depression. To begin with, depression is not “a medical condition.”

That is why the book The Truth about Dragons is about to appear.