Editor—What we, as clinical practitioners (or, as in my own case, former practitioner, now service coordinator), may need to learn is that the supposedly patently obvious is often obscured by our particular conditioned professional mindsets. The mindsets are influenced by the sociopolitics of healthcare delivery, and by, I suspect, an overly major focus on the individual (at the expense of the social and collective).
With regard to rethinking childhood depression,1 children these days are getting much less regular physical exercise than they used to 20 or so years ago and fewer opportunities exist for exercise. The prescribing of antidepressant drugs has gone through the roof in the past decade. Children now don't have the opportunities for essential play, to be a part of a social support network, or to be part of a cogent extended or otherwise “family” (read, again, “social support network”). They also do not have a reasonably viable outlet, for any and all those of the above, conflicts and frustrations.
Something has to be very wrong, don't you think?
Competing interests: KW is a former clinical nurse consultant (NSW Mid North Coast Area Health Services, Australia). She is the current secretary, Bicycle Federation of Australia. She is also the list owner of Physical Activity for Mental Health (http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/PhysicalActivityforMentalHealth/).
References
- 1.Timimi S. Rethinking childhood depression [with commentaries by Q Spender, P Wilkinson]. BMJ 2004;329: 1394-7. (11 December.) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]