A rigorous, if rather dry, examination of the mental health sector.
Feature image credit: Wakefield Press
Mental health awareness has grown exponentially in the last decade or so. With initiatives such as Beyond Blue, and R U OK Day, most people now have some idea about depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. We are told that diagnoses are growing, and that suicide statistics are horrifying, especially amongst men.
But is everything as the media would have us believe?
Anthony Smith has worked in the mental health and suicide prevention sectors for over 20 years. It is his contention that depression and other mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed, and consequently over-medicated. In Default Depression, he argues for the Situational Approach to mental distress, rather than the current pathological one.
Gathering statistics, and examining recent literature on the subject, Smith presents an in itself depressing picture of the current state of mental health care and intervention. In this work, he looks at, amongst other things, the roles played by the medical profession, the pharmaceutical industry, and workplace policymakers. In a nutshell, Smith argues that someone presenting with symptoms bespeaking depression, who is unemployed, might be better helped with assistance finding a job than with medication. In other words, we should be treating the situational cause of the distress, rather than just any underlying physiological one. He does not dismiss medication or other clinical interventions, but rather posits that the situational approach should be more to the fore, and there should be less defaulting to a diagnosis of depression, followed by medication.
Default Depression is certainly a passionate and thorough excoriation of the current mental health system, and offers some suggestions for systemic change. At times the author describes correlations without explaining the causative underpinnings, and although these may be available in the endnotes, it would make for better reading if they were integrated into the substantive text. It also seems to lack a clear description of the Situational Approach: it would have been helpful to read some comparative examples.
Clearly aimed at professionals and those working in and adjunct to the mental health sector, Default Depression is not a book that would speak to the average person who is seeking information about mental health, although they could cherry-pick some vital points.
Smith has something important to say. Whether this will help convert readers to the Situational Approach, or if it is going to preach to the choir, remains to be seen. One can only hope it is the former.
Reviewed by Tracey Korsten
Twitter: @TraceyKorsten
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Wakefield Press
Released: November 2023
RRP: $34.95
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