Separation of anxiety and depressive disorders: blind alley in psychopharmacology and classification of disease

Shorter and Tyrer do a an excellent a bit of sociological analysis
illustrating how current practice in treating depression and anxiety has
been developed to suit the economic and political interests of drug
companies. Then they go and spoil it all with some sloppy thinking of
their own (that we should view anxiety and depression as a single disease
category) apparently without realising that their conceptualization simply
replicates the same sociocultural dynamic but under a different label.

The central problem is that of medicalization of interpersonal, emotional
and social problems. This is what has opened the door to the drug
industry. It is psychiatrists who are giving the drug industry the
conceptual tools which drug companies then use to manipulate populations.
As they mention in their article, psychiatric diagnosis are formed by a
small committee of powerful 'experts' through their consensus. In the
absence of objective knowledge, tests and other ways of establishing
physical pathology underlying these consensus diagnosis, the categories
used will never be based on 'good scientific evidence', they will always
represent the subjective belief of those in the most powerful position and
so long as psychiatrists cling on to outdated uni-dimensional medical
models (as Shorter and Tyrer do), mental health will continue to bring
rich (literally) rewards for drug companies.

Competing interests:  
None declared