As someone that's suffered from depression for a very long time (and totally messed up my adolescence) this is a very good thing.
It is _very_ difficult to accurate diagnose these disorders and then half the time people don't believe you anyway. It's a very difficult disorder to convey to other people because it just doesn't resonate unless you've gone through it or have been clinically diagnosed (there's a huge huge difference between being down for a few weeks and having no joy in anything for years seemingly out of no where).
> It is _very_ difficult to accurate diagnose these disorders and then half the time people don't believe you anyway.
Fair enough. Which do you think is worse -- a false positive or a false negative? I ask because this diagnostic category has plenty of both.
I would want to be very sure about a depression diagnosis before assigning it, especially to young person with little life experience. These questionable diagnoses can change the direction of a person's life, possibly cause him to think of himself as permanently handicapped, brain-damaged, after a spell of the blues followed by a superficial diagnosis from a "professional".
Because of how little we know about depression, most diagnoses are in a gray area. It's not like there's a blood test -- and if you've read the posts in this thread, you know by now that there isn't a blood test, there's only a press release.
I'm not really gonna go to deep into it but my personal feelings are a false positive would be infinitely worse.
Those drugs they give you do shit to you. I've been permanently altered from taking them when I was in my adolescence (I can remember feeling _significantly_ different pre and post drugs, and I've been off for many man years). There's a reason I'm not very keen on the "keep trying them till something sticks" approach that we take with this crap. Especially with developing individuals.
It is _very_ difficult to accurate diagnose these disorders and then half the time people don't believe you anyway. It's a very difficult disorder to convey to other people because it just doesn't resonate unless you've gone through it or have been clinically diagnosed (there's a huge huge difference between being down for a few weeks and having no joy in anything for years seemingly out of no where).