Politics Summary

Politics play as large a role as science in the current description of depression. The question of treatment becomes one of the most essential questions. The vocabulary of depression, however, is very easily manipulated, which proves a disfavor. The definition of depression is necessary to determine the extent to which its treatment will be covered by insurance. United States government policy has continued to change in the last decade and continues to do so.

There are four major factors that influence ideas surrounding depression: its medicalization, its vast oversimplification, imagining and a weak mental health lobby. The greatest block, however, is social stigma, which applies to depression specifically more than to any other disease. Many people Solomon interviewed asked him not to use their names in his publication, fearing other people would know they were depressed and perceive them as weak. It took...