Agree fully with the concept of “victimisation”. How much of this ““victimisation”.is real, and how much is imagined or internally exaggerated is a different matter (although some mental conditions are organic, or can be triggered by high levels of stress, wrong types of foods, lack of exercise etc).

Of great concern is media that is purposely designed to make someone feel oppressed, suppressed or depressed, so that they feel in need of something new, (which of course has to be purchased). That media would be producing a race of perpetually unhappy consumers, and nothing on the planet will ever make them happy.

Ironic also, how that media becomes so popular.

I agree with this. I reckon a great deal of distress is caused by the disastrous way capitalism has gone to extremes in the western world, depressing wages, making life really damn hard for everyone. Capitalists tax everyone more than 70% as seen in exhorbitant rents and mortgages, bills from monopolies, etc. And the Howard government has been the highest taxing government we've ever seen with the GST, shifting the tax burden from corporations and the wealthy onto the average person. It all adds up and we pay for the lot. How many psychological problems have their roots in economic problems? A great deal, I'd say.

That is an exellent observation and so true, C.T, I think you overshot the target area with that little conspirecy, More so to do with Liberalism's interpritation of Natural Pain, where as once you lived with it and evolved around it, and changed to avoid it, is all to hard for some liberated reality deniers, so substance or Amphedomines are the inter-galactic space cadet way of escaping such pain, or facing up to reality.
Just seem's ODD, Pain is a natural biological warning system,Emotional or Physical, tampering with it can only lead to Halm, at worst, DEATH.
Best to relieve Humanity of libeterianism and get back to basics I would have thought.After all, Man is only a biological organism, tampering with the natural hormonal and chemical constituency will alter the evolved purpose, and that can not be good. Then You become a victim of your own stupidity.Or their children become a victim of their stupidity, and that really hurts.

I cant say I am aware of an "explosion of mental health problems. I wouldnt put too much faith in isolates surveys. Invariable at the margins there is always room for mis-diagnosis and or lazy diagnosis - but that does not represent the core of the problem.

Pointing to outlier phenomenon such as over prescribing of Ritalin and similar drugs does not lend itself in any way to the broad generalisations he makes about learned dependance. But then again this is the guy who tries to justify the use of landmines. This argument and his landmine treatise strike me as mere intellectual exercises; as he his a debating "champion" it might be like the Monty Python sketch and he is arguing in his spare time and/or just for the sake of it.

I have seen no real evidence of a myth of depression either and Alex fails to show us any; in fact it is rather a dumb position do adopt for one so erudite. Run any awareness campaign and you will get over reporting and "false positives" it is up to the clinicians to sort the wheat from the chaff and by and large they do.

Where there is some merit in what Deane says - no matter how over stated - it is lost in the rhetoric of "tuff love".

The veiw taken by Deane represents the kind of self-made man/cult of the lucky individual ethos that sucks at the entrails of the larger community like some kind of parasite. Take away the host and the parasite dies. Like so many of those of Deanes ilk they are only there through the agency of a larger supportive community - until such time as we wake up to ourselves that is.

Yes I agree sneeky.

Deane is writing way outside his area of expertise. His generalisations about psychological processes and trends are not the stuff of a Barrister.

Hitting people lower down the social tree (while veiling it as a criticism of doctors and drug companies) suggests that this manifestly cherubic chap has political aspirations.

Deane's tone seems to echo a politician's "quip" made about Brogden.

I think a senior post under Prime Minister Abbott is on the cards...

There is a fair amount of truth in what Alexander says.We all know it is no that simplistic and yes there are real mental health problems that aren't being dealt with.

I think some of it has to do with a much more complex and information overloaded society.Family breakdown and thus no support systems when things get tough.Also I have a theory that we once had family bonds created by outside threats to our survival that are no longer there hence we have a society that is shallow with no real emotional or communication ties.Very often a life threatening event will shake us out of our complacency and what seems to be a problem vanishes and we get on with our survival.

Perhaps families and fellow workers should do some dangerous activities together to enhance their emotional bonding and get things into perspective.I think part of it is also is what we have forgotten how to play and have fun socially without the aid of drugs such as alcohol.

It is not as simple as Alexander suggests but ADS ADD XYZ and their cousins are over diagnosed and over prescribed.