Despite the increasingly widespread availability of psychotropics believed to restore biochemical equilibrium in the brains of persons diagnosed with mood disorders, the number of people suffering from such medical conditions appears to be increasing. According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists, ‘by 2020 it is estimated that depression will be the second most common disabling condition in the world’, a figure it derives from the World Health Organization. Depression is, it seems, rapidly becoming a global threat. In a trend that is mirrored in much of the West, the number of prescriptions dispensed for antidepressants in the UK has doubled in the last decade and is continuing to rise. The need for a critical perspective on mood disorders is growing.
