</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
depression, is it so common?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">Yes, it is. I believe one stat is that 20% of people will experience it sometime in their lifetimes. I think the comparison to the cold just is meant to highlight how rampant the problem is, not to trivialize it.

Also, depression is "real" whether it is in reaction to stressful life events or not. Both result in similar biochemistry in the brain. Stress triggers all sorts of biochemical pathways, changes levels of neurotransmitters, etc. Depression in response to life events is indeed very real and can be debilitating and last a long time.

I think one reason depression is so commonly diagnosed is partly because providers are protecting their patients. A mood disorder such as depression is a much less "serious" diagnosis than many other conditions and doesn't carry the stigma of many others. Doctors, therapists, etc. protect their patients by reporting the least serious diagnosis for which they can get reimbursed from health insurance. (It doesn't mean this affects their treatment, which they can target to the true problem.) We have experienced this in my daughter's psychotherapy. Although in the end we decided not to seek reimbursement from insurance for her therapy--because she is a minor, and we did not want to place evidence in her medical files that might limit her later opportunities in life--we were advised that if we did want to seek reimbursement, that depression would be the best to report to insurance, even though it was not necessarily her problem. Yep, it's all part of the insurance game. I appreciate our health care providers watching out for my daughter and her future and letting us know all this (and we have been lucky enough to be able to afford to pay out of pocket at this time, but that may be changing). Anyway, I think a number of the depression diagnoses (although not most) could be for this reason.