CBT and antidepressants contain depression without addressing its social causes.

Evidence

Of course it’s not only about that. It’s also about levels of real distress and suffering in society, which cannot be handled or dealt with by the individualising, privatised assumptions of the dominant forms of treatment in mental illness, which are, in this country, cognitive behavioural therapy — which is a kind of combination of positive thinking and kind of psychoanalysis-light: the focus on the family background of the sufferer, and on then of converting thought patterns from these negative into positive ones. There’s that. And on the other hand, brain chemistry focus — the horrible loop whereby massive multinational pharmaceutical companies sell people drugs in order to cure them from the stresses brought about by working in late capitalism. Neither of these things are very effective — all they do is largely contain people’s depression rather than actually deal with the actual cause of depression. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2129

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Distills the whole critique: both mainstream treatments individualize structurally caused distress, containment without cure.
• XREF: Echoes the anti-psychiatry critique Fisher connects to capitalist realism elsewhere in this interview. — connects to: Only collective practice, not individual therapy, can address socially-caused distress — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1947; Much depression has social and political causes, not individual ones. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2129; Medicalizing depression blocks political explanation of its systemic causes — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 46 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Much depression has social and political causes, not individual ones. #corroborates (0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2129
• Medicalizing depression blocks political explanation of its systemic causes #expands (0.88) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 46
• Depression is privatized adjustment to capitalism while melancholia refuses that adjustment #expands (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2289
• Depression results when meritocratic self-blame meets limited opportunity #exemplifies (0.78) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1605
• Capitalism is constitutive crisis, so depression and unemployment do not threaten it. #qualifies (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 580