Quote:
Originally Posted by Archaea
I wish an informed physician would chime in here, but it seems we have lots of children taking medications for psychological diseases. Does society seek it out too much, or was society just under-treated previously?
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Both. Is that enough enlightenment on the subject?
To elaborate, I think it's a little ridiculous to assume that real depression/anxiety exist only in people over 21 (or 18, or whatever the cutoff is), although that is the assumption the medical community worked under for years. As soon as you identify a biochemical basis for depression, you also admit it can exist any age. That is being done more and more frequently and appropriately so. The challenge comes in distinguishing normal adolescent angst (or stress of mission field) from pathologic depression, and I think it's occasionally being overdiagnosed.