st do not understand at this time; yet, for as many causes of depression there are also just as many flourishing treatments. A forty-year history of research validates the physical causes of depression. People do no choose to suffer from depression, nor do they talk themselves into suffering from depression any more than one would choose to suffer from diabetes. “Depression has been considered to be the major psychiatric disease of the twentieth century, affecting approximately eight million people in North America. Adults with psychiatric illness are twenty time more likely to die from accidents or suicide than adults without a psychiatric disorder” (Blackman, 1). Ayer says it simply: “Depression is a real illness, with a cause, with recognizable symptoms, and a cure” (Ayer, 10)....
