Thursday, March 03, 2005

Depression

Major Depression Facts - Why the Sudden Increase?

"Societies that breed depression, and societies that don't

It is a fact that we all have basic emotional needs that must be met for us to thrive and enjoy life. After the primary human needs for food, water and shelter come commonly shared emotional and physical needs. Without exception we find depressed people are not getting these needs met.

Traditional communities naturally meet many 'basic needs' for emotional support. In the traditional Amish society in the US major depression is almost unknown, as it is in the equally traditional Kaluli tribe of New Guinea. In these societies individual concerns are group concerns and vise-versa. You know that if you have a problem other people will help you and you are expected to help out when others need support. We know we are meant to do these things but it's not a 'built in feature' of modern society in the same way.
These days we are much more 'self-focused'. The idea of considering the wider community to be more important than the self is almost impossible to understand for most people.

Major depression is 4th most disabling condition in the world, and 2nd most in the developed world.
As well as the human cost, the burden on society is incredible. Much of the research on this site about effective treatments for depression has been controlled by the US government, in order to try and find the best way to overcome depression. The cost to society is real, and we need to find the best way at beating depression for good."

1 Comments:

Blogger Adrian said...

Thought provoking material, thanks for sharing that.

Again, I feel this ties in with Maslow and his hierarchy of human needs. This would suggest people have their orders confused perusing matters of material possession (the needs of esteem) when they haven't sorted out their social needs.

10:06 am  

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