To work with any depressive states means taking the distinction between truth and the facts seriously. Sadly, today it is the 'facts' that are deemed more important by most conventional forms of healthcare, which emphasize not the unconscious mental life of the sufferer but their observable behaviour. Reducing pain and getting rid of symptoms deemed to be the central aims of treatment. Sleep, appetite and productivity must all be restored. Although this may of course be of the utmost importance, there is a danger here that a suppression of symptoms takes the place of an analysis of symptoms, which may recur, in altered form, later in life. The dimension of truth is stifled rather than elaborated. We have seen the significance of unconscious processes in the mournings and melancholias that so often lie behind depressive states. To access and have an effect on these processes, we need speech and dialogue, and this is unlikely to be either short or sweet. In today's quick-fix society, treatments which claim achieve rapid results will no doubt seem more attractive, especially to healthcare providers like NHS trusts and insurance companies. These treatments may improve our moods, making us less agitated and less reactive to external events, but they do not allow any real access to the source of our problems. Drugs can alleviate surface pain but they cannot affect personal, unconscious truth, which can only emerge through speaking.

(Darian Leader "The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression")