I don’t believe in this type of over-prescribed therapy. Only a very few people are actually clinically depressed, but SO many are being prescribed Prozac and Zoloft, that it is not a joke. The first line of defense should be that the doctor takes extremely extensive blood work and if necessary and MRI or CAT Scan, to ensure the patient’s symptoms are not indicative of a physical condition, rather than mental. My late mother Z”L, was seriously misdiagnosed as having clinical depression (because she was diabetic, no less), when in fact the doctor saw something in her regular six week blood tests, that was a dead giveaway to the fact that she had a growth on her pituitary/hypothalamus, that was causing every single one of her symptoms.
He never mentioned the blood test results to her or to us,though he had an obligation to do, because he personally attached no significance to them, when in fact, those results were CLASSIC signs of this type of tumor according to the Physician’s Desk Reference. When he was still seeing these results in blood work six months later (and after a great deal of agmas nefesh on our parts as we watched her deteriorate needlessly), he finally acknowledged to us that he “thought” she should probably have an MRI, because he saw some blood test results that had been present for six months.
The tumor was confirmed, by then it had already destroyed her thyroid and adrenal glands,but thankfully not her optic nerve which was very close to it, and simple replacement therapy, two tiny pills of Syntrhoid and Coortisol, like saccharine tablets, restored her to normal function LITERALLY overnight. She of course needed and had successful surgery, but so much time that could never be made up, had already been wasted in her getting the proper treatment, because the doctor didn’t “think” it could possibly be such a thing, though the symptoms and bloodwork were absolutely dead on for this condition. I cannot be moichel this doctor for ruining her life for all that time, missing her first grandson’s (my son’s)aliyah to the Torah at his Bar-Mitzvah,for not keeping us in the loop, and for trying to convince us she was mentally ill. And no, we did not sue him for negligence, for personal reasons, though we had every right to do so.