The Mental Health Sciences and the Depression Industry

To understand the way that psychotherapy and the mental health movement have developed over recent decades one has to travel back in time to the era(s) when the ‘mind sciences’ began to gain prominence in public and scientific discourses. The actual term ‘psychotherapy’ arose sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century but its origins go back to Greek antiquity. In ancient Greece and Rome, the cause and cure of many diseases was considered to result from supernatural or religious forces. A variety of cures were effected to address such diseases and they tended to range from incantations, charms and spells to people sleeping within the precincts of the local temple in order that God could counsel them in their dreams.