I agree absolutely.  Perhaps it's not as bad in Europe, but this is a real problem in the US -- especially with women's health care issues.  I don't know if it's from propaganda from big pharma or what, but if you're "feeling bad" (which happens when you're sick), the automatic thing is to try to tell you to take prozac or something.

I had something pretty severe wrong with me which could have been corrected at an early stage.  Instead, first because of no insurance and then because of no one listening and lastly because of mis-diagnosis, I ended up being in an urgent surgical situation and it didn't go well.  But during this four year ordeal, it was suggested more than once that it might be stress or depression and I was treated like an uncooperative patient because I wouldn't go on anti-depressents.

I wasn't even depressed!  And then they just tell you it's a symptom of severe depression to not know you're depressed!!  It was like a bad Kafka story.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

I don't believe it ever was Bartels intent to put decisive numbers on the causes of emotionality and my closing sentence was more of a taunt than a serious statement. You took the bait, but you're dead right in conveying the risks such generalisations entail.

In Bartels' defence, science is not (always) about that; it's about finding stuff out that are interesting, finding new frontiers. There is little knowledge, apparently, on how the biological component influences our psychological state. Personally, I find that fascinating and would want to know more what's going on there.

I see it like this and I make an analogy to my reaction to REACH, the legislative approach in Brussels to make companies test their chemicals thoroughly before they are put in consumer products. My first response to REACH was, "Oh no, there we go again with the aspartan angst and all the public legends." But thinking about it a little more (and also interacting with others), I came to the conclusion that it was far, far better to know more about all the consequences of chemicals than to not know, and take the hysterical reactions (which I believe would undoubtedly come) for granted. In that respect, I view this research somewhat similar. I'm more inclined to know than to not know.

Consider though. There's growing evidence that the occurrences of asthma (and allergies) are linked to certain foodware, and especially emulgators, flavour extracts etc. But that's not enough to explain it: there must also be a genetic variation that makes some people more susceptible to responding to these foodwares and cause an increased risk in getting asthma. So if this is true (it hasn't been proven), this is a two-pronged problem: genetics and environment. But it will undoubtedly help if the specialists can determine how large the influence is of the genes in this. I think the same can be true for the problem of depression: if you are genetically "weak" in happiness, you would be more susceptible to the environmental/nurture factors. That doesn't eradicate the legitimacy of their unhappiness.

Last point, as I said to whataboutbob as well, I find it interesting that many in this thread immediately lodge onto the downside of the issue, literally. Can we equal a lack of happiness immediately to depression? I doubt that, but I'm not an expert at all...

When I'm in work or dealing with other people in general I tend to be cheerful, smiley and generally good humoured.  I build up a great relationship with clients and their staff which really makes my day to day work more enjoyable (I'm an accountant).  I know that if I give them a call and am pleasant and they know they can be themselves with me that it in some way cheers them up and also makes me smile when I get off the phone...seratonin levels boosted on both sides I guess!  One colleague actually claims that I 'flirt' with one of the bank managers when I'm speaking to him on the phone.  All I do is chat while working through the more mundane tasks and if we have a laugh in there...all the better.  

I've always been a fairly cheerful person...but sometimes I can feel very down and feel like nothing can improve, that I'll never get past certain goals...and at the same time I know it's not true...and then there are times when I can be in such a great mood that I have to watch what I say because I know that my 'giddy' mood will probably let me say something I wouldn't normally say and I'll regret it...thankfully this does not happen when talking to clients!

I can see where the levels of seratonin etc could be a hereditary factor...but the experiences of life play a huge part in our levels of happiness.  Like a lot of other things in life I'd say it's a mix of everything that makes us who we are.

I agree...money doesn't buy happiness...but it certainly improves people's moods.  Just look at people before and after payday...specially in January. Our payday was yesterday...there were lots of special lunch treats and people meeting up with friends this evening and over the coming weekend...all conducive to creating happiness somewhere for some or all of them.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde

And the answer is, yes, she did, both identical as non-identical. And as I read it, she is planning to involve 4500 twins from real life and not pluck them out of the literature. She just started this research and has at least several years to pursue.

But the same question came up that PeWi below asked as well: are there that many twins around?? I guess there are or they wouldn't have bothered...

DSM? Perhaps I am too tired, but I can't place the acronym.

I have to say that whilst I do think drugs are the wrong way to deal with things generally, there are good grounds to think that life for ordinary people is more unstable and filled with at least less apparent security and this makes a rise in the demand for treatment of mental disquiet inevitable.

I might prefer if it inspired political engagement or revolutionary activity, but this is not how most humans react to this kind of stimulus it seems.

To be undrugged -- neither pharmaceutically nor recreationally -- seems to be becoming exceptional.

it's the new 'unplugged'!

seriously though, have you read andrew weil?

the way he sees it, and i agree, is that many foods are drugs, in their effects, and the line between the two is pretty arbitrary.

one man's trash is another man's treasure...

wanting to bend consciousness is not per se a sign of folly, (though it can sure accelerate going there).

and being a non-bender is no guarantee of clear thinking, in my experience anyway.

personally i believe that we should decide for ourselves what best nourishes us, and if you can grow it in the garden organically, then you should have a right to use it, whatever 'category' the present mores determine it to be.

there's too much difference in opinion in various thriving cultures to take categorisation seriously, except for staying out of jail, natch!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

Oh . I really wrote it too fast

Roughly stmation according to my own model of DNA-protein network interaction (which can take cues from the environment and react to it): 1 %

30 % is fixed by the plasticity in your brain which is fixed by the social interaction (mostly when you are a little kid...but you can change it).

15 % is just pure luck.. people that you happen to know, interactions that you happen to have....bad/good things that happen to happen...new ideas that happen to help you change your vision of happiness .. and the world..

Sorry...

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

Completely right Bob.. I agree completely.

There is a long lsit of culture , palces, etcc where depression is non-existent... so we know depresion is purely a social factor.. that indeed changes your body adn the level of neurotransmittor...

On the other hand schizofrenia is considered to be universal.. there are records of peole behaving as such in a lot of different places...but in this case the general thinking is that it is a problem of brain functioning.. this means that the origin could be pure DNA or more probably some problem in the DNA-protein network or even some interaction with the envronment at an early stage that can produce this illness (or a bad DNA-protein circuit) very easily...

And regarding the bi-polar deficient disorder I just love your comment.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

Frontpaging this? You know what the consequence is of that? It makes the hoop hang higher for the next time! The next time, I really need to sparkle, when I come here with a (semi-)serious item... In hindsight though, when I cut the newspaper clipping out on Tuesday with the intent to diary it, I had no idea there would be a somewhat ironic actuality tied to it at the moment of posting...

But here is a question I had for a professinal, so now I've found one. Haha!

Let's see. The research of Bartels focusses on happiness, but what often happens is that people lodges instead onto the other side: depression - also very clearly visible in this thread, might I say. I generalise, but the thought seems to be: If happiness is explained, then inherently there is an explanation for depression. Isn't that a bit jumping the gun? Is the lack of happiness always depression? I could see that they're diametrically opposed (but are they?), but isn't there a little more to to it than that?

And this is why gauging happiness was a debated issue in this research. Apparently we have sufficient methodology to decide when someone is depressed, but is there for happiness? It seems not.

...and the debate about nature vs. nurture, you could very well consider twins as guinea pigs. Especially twins separated after births are a virtual goldmine for this kind of research.

I think you are totally right; when you search information on anti-depressors on the net, you inevitably find so many posts of ordinary peaple enduring suffering and difficulties to get off them; many of the new generation (prozac etc...) are terribly addictive, probably more than when you occasionnally take a tablet of exctacy, a glass of whisky, or even a joint. all I read really put me off, so I've always avoided the stuff, even if a - what I would call negligent doctor - prescribed such stuff to me.
I am sceptical about people who are prompt to say "oh, depression is genetic"; I suspect it's also a good way to avoid any kind of responsability, wether you are a parent, or any member of a culture/society;
there is something else I find somewhat confusing: almost all anti-depressors provoke a form of sexual castration - hum rather depressing I find: a drug which happily makes you accept to have no sex life or sexual desire; strange I would say.
The other part of the problem is a more corporate issue: how much pharmaceutical firms are earning on these addictive drugs? logically the more they are addictive, the more they will earn; if they can get ordinary people who are just meddling with ordinary problem to take drugs for all their life - this is a really good deal for them.