The Worried Well: The Depression Epidemic and Medicalisation of Our Sorrows: Quarterly Essay 18

In the second Quarterly Essay of 2005, Gail Bell investigates Australia's depression epidemic. Why, she wonders, do well over a million Australians now take antidepressant drugs?

This is a fresh, frank and independent look at the depression culture and the move to medicalise sadness. Bell examines how the prescription culture operates, scrutinising the role of big drug companies and GPs and talking to those who take - and don't take - the new antidepressants, from anxious students to lonely ...