[brazzy]

You seem to mix up three different points/views, which weakens your argument a lot:

- The word "platitudes" and the scare quotes around "cure" indicate that blanket skepticism towards depression therapy of the kind I see from conspiracy nuts. You disqualify yourself from serious discussion that way.

- "coping methods on how to deal with the facts of a sad and sorry life" indicates that you believe depression is caused by external rather than internal factors. This runs very much against well established knowledge. If you suffer from external factors, those should be improved, and it's primarily up to you to do that.

- In cases of depression where therapy is ineffective for some reason, should this be considered morally equivalent to someone wishing to die to end their suffering from cancer, MS, etc.? This is absolutely worth discussing. The main problem I see is that we know that depression generaly is curable - so at what point do you decide that a given case is not?

[lhnz]

I'm not mixing up three different points/views, I was trying to give a faithful description of my own depression?!

My point was that I find the standard approach towards depression alienating because it completely discounts my own experiences. And as you neatly clarified, I disqualified myself from serious discussion of my own depression.

I don't think I have a better solution than what already exists, but I'm trying to get people to understand that human experience can't be completely generalised. When your framework disparages the remarks of people that have been depressed and have left depression surely there might be a problem there?

I will reiterate:

  1. I had depression caused by long-term external factors.
  It's popular to think this doesn't happen but it can happen.
  2. When I went to see a therapist I received platitudes and 
  coping strategies however as I had an external factor this
  felt like treating the effect and not the cause.
  3. It was really bad. I feel like I'm arguing with a bunch of 
  people that have no way of empathising.

It's not that I don't believe people can be cured but a combination of internal and external factors can make this difficult, and in the few case I know of people that have been depressed they have been "cared for" but not "cured" by the system.

[brazzy]

OK, I apologize. Obviously it's wrong for me to disqualify you from discussion your own experience - but it seemed to me like you were generalizing your experience to apply to everyone else and claim that depression therapy is humbug, which is also wrong. As you say, "human experience can't be completely generalised".

A therapist who completely discounts external factors in treating depression seems to me rather incompetent. But then, external factors can and should be changed by direct actions. But a depressed patient may not have the will or energy to change them - in which case the problem really is the depression. Of course, if change to the external factor is truly not possible, then coping strategies is really all that can be done.