Default Depression

It's a stressful world and we can become overwhelmed. But at what point does sadness become depression, and stress an anxiety disorder?


In Default Depression, author Anthony Smith examines the medicalisation of common human experience. Regardless of the context and cause, distress is increasingly interpreted and diagnosed as a mental illness - commonly clinical depression, Default Depression. This phenomenon has grown to the point that it now pervades all sectors of our community through formalised policies and practices such as workplace mental health. Distressed people are directed onto a restrictive pathway of a formal medical diagnosis and treated with potentially harmful antidepressants while the causes of their distress are disregarded, including crucial social determinants of psychological and emotional wellbeing.


The suffering is real, but the costs for society and the individual of blaming biology, while not considering and addressing the causes of distress, is huge. Default Depression builds a compelling case for an extensive shift in how we support people in psychological and emotional distress - away from the damaging tendency to medicalise and medicate, towards a more nuanced and evidence-based approach.