New insights into mental illness

It had all become depressingly familiar: the suicidal teenager with relationship difficulties; a middle-aged office worker who had lost the energy to keep going; a lonely pensioner with insomnia and multiple functional complaints. The answer to all of these and many more was: start an antidepressant, take a few moments to hear their complaints, refer for some counselling. And yet many times nothing really helped. Despite the much vaunted hype and advertising of antidepressants, most GPs will know how little they can do for the patients we see …