On air: Is Happiness a natural state ?

….and therefore if you aren’t happy, then you’re ill ?

Here’s an article that has got a lot of people talking from the New Yorker.

Louis Menand reviews a couple of new books which deal with the subject of  depression and writes :

“what has changed is not the number of people who are clinically depressed but the definition of depression, which has been defined in a way that includes normal sadness.”

On air: Should you be open about your mental illness ?

It was terribly sad listening to the friends, family, fans and colleagues of Robert Enke this week.

The German goalkeeper committed suicide on Tuesday, and for some there was the shock of not knowing how long he’d battled depression.

For others, especially his wife,  (below)there was the sorrow that ultimately he’d been unable to overcome his illness.

On air: Why aren’t we doing more about depression?

There’s a major mental health summit taking place in Greece at the moment (you may have heard my colleague Pascale Harter reporting from there), and there are some stark statistics coming out of it. About 800,000 people commit suicide every year, and 86 per cent of them are from low- and middle-income countries. Yet, the WHO points out, in the developing world 2% of national health budgets are spent on mental healthcare.

Do anti-depressants work?

A study has concluded that most patients don’t benefit from some of the most common anti-depressants like Prozac and Seroxat. In severe cases, the researchers found there may be some benefits to taking anti-depressants.

It’s based on the findings of 47 trials submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the US, details of which were made public in some cases and not in others.

Do you, a friend or a relative take anti-depressants? Have they affected how you or they feel?