There has long been this divide between 'you don't have a biological disorder and it is all your fault' vs 'it isn't your fault at all, it is genetic and / or neurological'. Part of this is the nature vs nurture debate, to be sure, but I also think that the divide has somehow found a life of its own. The majority of people will acknowledge that 'nature vs nurture' simply isn't an interesting dispute, the million dollar question is figuring out how nature and nurture interact and influence each other such to produce the phenomenon that is of interest. Unfortunately, this received wisdom hasn't made it through to the 'you don't have a biological disorder it is all your fault' vs 'it isn't your fault at all, it is genetic and / or neurological' debates.

There was a lot of stuff done in... The 60's, I think. One 'social' explanation of autism was the 'refridgerator parent' hypothesis. The idea is that some parents are cold and distant and that causes certain infants to develop autism. Now, I haven't read those theorists myself, but I do know that a common interpretation / misinterpretation of those theorists was 'you parents are the cause of your infants problems - the cause of your infants problems is simple - bad parenting!' If I thought I had to choose between blaming myself for my bad parenting and blaming my infants biology and giving them medication then the latter line surely looks tempting!

Fortunately, social explanations are typically much more sensitive now. Unfortunately, this seems slow to filter through.

> Unfortunately people sometimes like to use biology because they don't want to admit that they might have made some mistakes.

I think it might be about fear. People think they have to choose between 'not biological therefore my fault' and 'biological therefore not my fault'. But of course people can be partly responsible for their biological disorder (e.g., eating badly - diabetes, smoking - cancer) and people can be not responsible for things that aren't biological (e.g., abuse).

> I mean, we've gotten to the point where textbooks are describing clinical depression as the "common cold" of mental disorders and I find that VERY disturbing. The people who suffer from true clinical depression are really being screwed over by this.

I think by 'common cold' they mean 'very prevalent' rather than 'just get over it in 7-10 days there is nothing we can do and it isn't very bad anyway'.

> The truly clinically depressed are being ignored and stigmatized and told to "just get over it" because depression is supposedly just like the "common cold".

I think I hear you. But then... I guess I worry about the thought that people can 'just get over' various things that aren't biological (like abuse), too.