> Also, there are actually a lot of people who deny any psychological involvement with depression, and you'll see this a lot on forums (including HN).
To be fair, a lot of psychotherapy advocates claim the same thing about physiological causes. This is kind of funny because the first step in a mood disorder diagnosis is supposed to be the elimination of physiological explanations, but in practice that process is often... let's be kind to the GPs/PCPs and say "optimized for time".
Basically, anyone who claims to have the one true solution to depression is either lying or believes a little too much in their own hype. Some are people who got lucky and had their first treatment work wonders (not a typical experience) and now think that everyone with depression needs to try their specific treatment, but a lot are people with a financial, reputational, or ideological stake in people's beliefs about treatment.
On one hand, depression treatment is certainly a case of "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" [1]. On the other hand, it's also a case of "it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose; that is not a weakness, that is life" [2].
[1]: popularly attributed to Wayne Gretzky
[2]: Jean-Luc Picard; Star Trek: The Next Generation 02x21 Peak Performance
To be fair, a lot of psychotherapy advocates claim the same thing about physiological causes. This is kind of funny because the first step in a mood disorder diagnosis is supposed to be the elimination of physiological explanations, but in practice that process is often... let's be kind to the GPs/PCPs and say "optimized for time".
Basically, anyone who claims to have the one true solution to depression is either lying or believes a little too much in their own hype. Some are people who got lucky and had their first treatment work wonders (not a typical experience) and now think that everyone with depression needs to try their specific treatment, but a lot are people with a financial, reputational, or ideological stake in people's beliefs about treatment.
On one hand, depression treatment is certainly a case of "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" [1]. On the other hand, it's also a case of "it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose; that is not a weakness, that is life" [2].
[1]: popularly attributed to Wayne Gretzky
[2]: Jean-Luc Picard; Star Trek: The Next Generation 02x21 Peak Performance