Rethinking Depression: Reactions to a Book Questioning the Existence of Depression
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It’s difficult to acknowledge that for part of your life you’ve been deceived by false information. For example, you could have small realizations, like the fact that crossing your eyes too much as a kid won’t actually make your eyes stay crossed, or you could have life-changing facts told to you, such as you were adopted and your mom and dad aren’t your biological parents.
The new book “Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning,” was released on Feb. 15, 2012, and it explores the theory that depression and many mental disorders in general are essentially lies, and that people are only suffering from unhappiness.
Eric Maisel, a psychotherapist, claimed in his controversial book that depression is not a disease or mental disorder, but is actually just unhappiness. He suggested that depression and even other mental disorders are normal emotions, reactions and behaviors that have been pathologized as part of the rise in different industries, such as the pharmaceutical, social work and psychotherapy industry.
He added that it seems any unwanted emotions or behaviors are now considered abnormal and mental disorders, and depression is no exception.
Enormous numbers of people are diagnosed with depression and given prescriptions for antidepressants every year, and Maisel explained that this situation is making Americans “sicker and weaker."
Having a mental disorder diagnosis doesn’t allow people to really take charge and control of their lives because they are willing to accept that they have a mental disorder and don’t really have control because it’s part of their biology.
He wrote that it has come to the point that the word depression “has virtually replaced unhappiness in our internal vocabularies.” He stated that it is normal to be both unhappy and happy throughout life, and just because you’re unhappy and suffering for no reason, this does not mean you are abnormal and have a mental disorder.
The author went into detail on how current research and treatments don’t support an actual mental disorder of depression, yet the widespread lie of depression still exists.
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