Talking Sensibly about Depression

The slogan for World Health Day is “let’s talk,†emphasizing the central role of disclosure “as a vital component of recovery†by targeting the stigma surrounding mental illness, which acts as a barrier to people with depression seeking help. Significantly, the WHO campaign recommends that talking can involve a wide range of potential listeners, from family members and friends to health professionals, as well as encouraging open discussions about this condition in settings such as schools, the workplace, and in the media, “ultimately leading to more people seeking help.†I emphatically support the notion that seeking help must include both professional and nonprofessional actors. Despite this pragmatic recommendation, there is still little tangible action by governments and health systems to implement the evidence on effective interventions, and this is, at least in part, because of dissonant perspectives about the very nature of this condition. Indeed, some commentators view the discourse on the global burden of depression and the treatment gap as a culturally insensitive plot to export a failed psychiatric model to unsuspecting developing countries and a ploy to expand markets for pharmaceutical companies. [Plos Medicine Essay].