I think it’s representative of the mindset prevalent today that a pill can cure what ails us. It’s the fast food mentality to everything. Want to get rich just join this. Want to get fit just do this. Want to get girls just follow these steps.
For the record I am convinced with the evidence for clinical depression. Heck DFW died because his meds no longer affected his brain the way it used to. It’s just that when we should be dealing with our insecurities, our fears etc we take the easy way out and go for the meds.
I remember a Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon’s sister visits him and she likes rajesh but the anti anxiety drug that rajesh took to combat his problems conversing with women come to mind.
NOTE(DFW David Foster Wallace wikipedia link here but I’m too lazy)
Why do antidepressants work only for the deeply depressed? A neuroskeptical look
Posted on: January 26, 2010 8:11 PM, by David Dobbs
Neuroskeptic ponders the growing evidence that antidepressants significantly best placebo only in the more (or most) depressed patients. His take is that:
antidepressants treat classical clinical depression, of the kind that psychiatrists in 1960 would have recognized. This is the kind of depression that they were originally used for, after all, because the first antidepressants arrived in 1953, and modern antidepressants like Prozac target the same neurotransmitter systems.
via Why do antidepressants work only for the deeply depressed? A neuroskeptical look : Neuron Culture.