Depression: Rebalancing Neuroessentialist Data

• Main Author: Abiola Bamijoko-Okungbaye
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: InterOPTICS 2019-12-01
• Series: Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience & Mental Health
• Subjects: depression; neuroessentialism; mental health; community care; mental disorders; recovery
• Online Access: http://www.obrela-journal.gr/index.php/obrela/article/view/137

Health care provision for those suffering from depression is gaining momentum with local and international initiatives to destigmatize mental disorders; an example is the global mental health day. Still, depression remains the leading cause of ill health and disability, over 300 million people living with depression. There is a prevailing paradigm in the field to describe depression in the realm of brain disorders. Such a position tends to prevent individual values from clinical treatment, particularly those patients suffering from depression. I aim to claim in this paper that reducing the numbers mentioned above will require us to adopt the conception of depression that is beyond neuroessentialism, highlighting the importance of neuroessentialism data in the discourse.