Antidepressants: Treatment for bad marriages?
The assumption that people struggling with their marriages or other domestic issues are suffering from depression is not supported by the way depression is defined medically, said Jonathan M. Metzl, Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt and the study's lead author. The study, conducted using a Midwestern medical center's records from 1980 to 2000, appears in the current issue of the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine Notably, Metzl said, the time period of analysis followed a 1974 decision that removed the term "homosexuality" from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM ), the standard reference book of psychiatric illnesses. "As it became less acceptable to overtly diagnose homosexuality, it became increasingly acceptable to diagnose threats to female-male relationships as conditions that required psychiatric intervention," Metzl said. "Doctors increasingly ...