Reply #11: Point well taken

[Einstein99]

Depression is not lunacy. I just wanted to catch people's attention so that they would read my post, and I couldn't think of a more clever headline.

As for what FormerRepublican said about depression being a physical illness, there are two points of view. There are some people who call themselves "psychiatric survivors" who believe that medications have done them more harm than good (and in some cases they may be right). They also believe that psychiatric disorders are purely psychological and that medications cannot cure their conditions, only suppress their behavior.

The more commonly held view, and the one accepted almost universally in the medical community, is that mental illnesses are correlated with brain dysfunctions resulting from physical injuries or the improper functioning of neurotransmitters. In the latter case, people often speak of mental illnesses as neurobiological disorders. For more on this point of view, you might start with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. I'm not sure, but I would guess that their Website is NAMI.org.