MattGlover.com

Reading this article frightens me. A few quotes:

A STAGGERING 337,553 prescriptions for antidepressants were written for children and adolescents in the past year, raising fears about whether “happy pills” are being used as a quick-fix for despondent youngsters.

And later…

Melbourne psychiatrist George Halasz sees the increasing use of antidepressants as further evidence of what he calls “diagnostic creep”. Not that long ago, he says, sadness was simply sadness and shyness was shyness. Today, along with myriad conditions once regarded as normal, sadness and shyness can be diagnosed respectively as depression and social phobia and treated with a pill.

“There is a problem in our culture where we’re finding it a lot more difficult to cope with … events which have always been part of life — births, deaths, accidents, illnesses,” Dr Halasz says. “As we have less time to attend to these natural transitions and natural stresses, there is very strong demand on the medical profession to alleviate suffering.”

Many things run through my mind reading this. But perhaps of most concern is the emerging generation of young people who run from all forms of suffering and are thus stunted in their maturing and development.

A pill taking culture doesn’t seem that attractive to me, yet it seems that is where we are headed.

I wonder what discipleship looks like in this sort of culture where the fear of suffering is greater than the suffeing itself….?