Most Americans do not feel comfortable speaking to their doctor about symptoms of depression.
Why?
That’s the question a team of psychologists at the University of
California recently tried to answer via a phone survey of 1054 adults. Time reports the results:
- 23% were afraid that their doctor would try to prescribe them antidepressant drugs.
- 13% said they were worried they would be referred to a psychiatrist
- 12% said they didn’t want to be considered a psychiatric patient.
- 16% didn’t think psychological issues fell under the purview of a primary care doctor
- 15% were concerned about medical record confidentiality.
The first three certainly coincide with my own experience of
counseling people with depression; and there is usually even greater
resistance to seeking medical help among Christians. The majority of
emails, letters, phone calls, cries for help, that I regularly receive
contain extremely painful personal stories describing the impact of
depression on people’s lives, and the lives of their loved ones. But
they almost always conclude with some variation of, “But, I know that
anti-depressants are not for me,” or “But, I want to beat this on my
own.”
Why should this be? Keep Reading...
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