Is There a Real Solution to Depression?

Depression is now ranked as a major global health crisis, affecting over 120 million people, according to a recent study from the World Health Organization (WHO), and ranks fourth amongst all health problems in its economic and social costs.

The study, published in the journal of the American Medical Association recently, also estimated that ten percent of the population in the United States suffers from depression, and between 15 and 20 percent of sufferers commit suicide.

The symptoms of depression include feeling sad or down, losing interest in everyday activities, feeling guilty, worthless or hopeless, or having sleeplessness and lack of energy. This means that practically every person on this planet suffers at one point or another from depression and according to the National Institute of Health (Bethesda, Maryland), 19 million Americans older than 18 are afflicted with depression in any given year.

Despite the remedies from the leaders in the medical field which consist generally of various pills—that are about as effective as the age-old, "just take a deep breath" method—there is an actual solution to depression and it has been around for 54 years. The remedy is described in the book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by author and humanitarian, L. Ron Hubbard.

Depression is often characterized as both a "disease" and a "medical condition." This means that if your favorite pet dies and you feel sad about it and that sadness lingers for a few weeks or more and upsets your daily life, you may somehow have contracted a disease, or medical condition. Only a doctor or other "qualified" healthcare professional can make a diagnosis of depression.

This is in contrast to the remedy Hubbard describes in Dianetics, which has been used successfully by millions of people worldwide. Harvard University psychiatrist Joseph Glenmullen says the questionnaire or symptoms used to "diagnose" depression "may look scientific," but "when one examines the questions asked and the scales used, they are utterly subjective measures..."

Allen J. Frances, professor of psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center writes, "psychiatry's claim that mental illnesses are brain diseases...is not true. There are no objective diagnostic tests to confirm or disconfirm the diagnosis of depression...There is no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence or absence of a mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases.”

While biochemical explanations for psychiatric conditions are the most common explanation of the cause of depression, Glenmullen is emphatic, "...not one has been proved. Quite on the contrary, in every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false.”

According to biopsychologist, Elliot S. Valenstein, PhD, author of Blaming the Brain, "the theories are held on to not only because there is nothing else to take their place, but also because they are useful in promoting drug treatment."

There are three main treatments for depression symptoms as advocated by mental health practitioners: anti-depressant drugs, electroconvulsive treatment and psychotherapy.

Nobody knows exactly what the anti-depressant drugs (SSRI's) do to the brain, and while they temporarily handle some of the symptoms of depression, their side-effects are quite drastic.

As regards electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a 2001 Columbia University study found ECT is so ineffective at ridding patients of their depression that nearly all of those who receive it relapse within six months of stopping treatment.

Lastly, psychotherapy can take years at great cost, and has no objective documentation as to its efficacy.

As with any condition, treating only the symptoms, not the cause, has no real long-term benefits. With current mainstream treatments, it seems therefore that no safe effective therapy exists.

However it is not true that there is no understanding of the causes of depression. In his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard lays out very clearly the exact anatomy of how the mind works, and what causes such things as anxiety, irrational fears and depression. Dianetics fully explains the source of upsets and uncontrolled emotion—the reactive mind and details how it is possible to get rid of it.

Current medical thinking treats physical illnesses as only a function of the body, while modern psychiatry treats mental illnesses as a dysfunction of the brain. In Dianetics, Hubbard demonstrates how the mind affects the body, he shows how 70% of all man's illness are in fact psychosomatic and then he goes on to explain the exact therapy to deal with these problems.

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was first published in 1950 and has been a consistent best-seller ever since. The information contained in this book can help any person achieve a happier and healthier life, and does not involve any of the expensive and often destructive therapies used to treat the symptoms of depression. Dianetics counseling goes straight to the root of the problem—the reactive mind—and helps to handle it, thus alleviating the symptoms.

Depression is a very real and tragic thing, and any effective therapy that could handle it permanently should be a welcome solution to a condition that is now regarded as a global problem. For more information on Dianetics, visit www.dianetics.org.