When people are diagnosed with depression should they take medicines or practice spirituality?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, when people are diagnosed with depression and they are prescribed medication, is medication necessary? See, there are two different situations.
That means, we all face human problems. Human problems means, we may face loss, we may face failure, we may face rejection. These are human problems.
And the attempt to find chemical solutions to human problems is doomed. Human problems require us to grow. We need to grow in our humanness, we need to grow in our spirituality.
If it is a problem, which is a human problem, which is a part of our normal course of life, and we find ourselves unable to cope with it. So, chemicals, they will not really help us to cope with that. For that, actually, we need to need a deeper understanding of what life is, what the purpose of life is.
For that, we really need to go spiritually. At the same time, many times depression can have, have, can arise from some chemical deficiency or some structural damage to the brain. So, when there is a clear physical diagnosis that, okay, this particular chemical is short, or this particular area of the brain is having some sort of functional issues, then in that case, we do need medication.
Because, the spiritual is never the substitute for the material. The spiritual is the complement for the material. So, just like if my hand is fractured, my meditation is not going to cure the fracture.
I need to go to a doctor and treat it. So, like that, if there is some serious physical, chemical, structural problem in the brain that is causing some mental problems, then we can’t we can’t demand that spirituality should solve that problem. So, in most cases, if people go to psychiatrist or psychologist, there is a there is a book called Cracked.
It’s written by psychiatrist. He says, how psychiatry is doing more harm than good. So, he described an experiment in England.
They had a normal person, a sane person. He went to six different psychiatrists and described the same set of symptoms. But, in each description, in which each psychiatrist, he emphasized one symptom more.
For example, one he said, I am feeling very worried. Another said, I am feeling very negative. Third he said, I am feeling very hateful.
And these six different psychiatrists, they gave six entirely different diagnoses. And not only entire diagnosis in terms of what the problem is, but prescription in terms of chemicals, very different chemicals. So, the problem with psychiatry primarily is that that mental health problems are not based on physical issues most of the time.
If I have malaria, there is a germ that can isolate. This is a germ, this has increased and this is a chemical that will kill that. So, but there is nothing like that.
So, that’s why the attempt to medicate away human problems that often aggravates things. So, in general, we shouldn’t make it a make it a think of medication as a quick fix solution to stress or depression or addiction. But at the same time, if somebody is chronically depressed and some tangible clear diagnosis comes of some chemical imbalance or some structural damage, then it is not that to be spiritual one has to not take the medicines.
So, one has to take the medicines, but in general, even if you are taking the medicines, if we grow spiritually, we will be able to cope with the process of treatment also better. Because psychosomatic diseases are also a big problem today where the attitudes of the mind, the emotions of the mind, they manifest as physical health issues. So, when they have manifested as physical health issues, certain physical level treatment is required.
But at the mental level also, there has to be a change of attitude. So, it’s best to focus on spiritual growth, but it’s not necessary to make it a principle. Just for the sake of spirituality, one cannot take some chemical or biological treatments when they are necessary.
Does it answer your question? Yes.