There's a little too much polarization going on in this conversation.
It's possible to question the validity of research/conclusions drawn in psychology without believing that people who are struggling with problems are somehow weak/inferior . . . and without arguing that they don't need help. You can also do so without romanticizing ancient times.
Antidepressants (for example) help some people, and help them a lot. However, for an awful lot of people they don't seem to do anything at all (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0087089/), and many come with some serious side effects. It's important that we don't vilify medication that can help people, but also that we don't deify something that won't work for an awful lot of people in need.
I agree. As someone with actual biological (incurable) problems that heighten my risk of depression, and who has experienced 3 major depressive episodes in my lifetime, I have experience with both 'helping myself' by changing diet, exercise, sunlight exposure, therapy which helped me change coping mechanisms AND changed my hormone levels to some degree, and experience with needing real help when my depression was too severe for 1) those types of actions to help ENOUGH for me to live normally; and/or 2) I was too nonfunctional to take action to help myself in any way.
Full disclosure: I actually have never taken anti-ds, though I suspect they would have greatly helped me when I was experiencing my first 2 depressive episodes in my teens and twenties. By my third depression, my initial interventions (treating the hormone imbalance directly) allowed me to take additional self help steps and then I climbed out of 'the pit' on my own. But that was just how my particular body and mind worked on that occasion. I don't pretend that my 'greater willpower fixed my depression', that would be offensive bullshit.
I would try antidepressants in a hot second if I ever experience another bad depressive episode, and my usual approach doesn't work. I also have chronic soft tissue pain (myofascial/fibro type) and I have seriously considered trying anti-ds for that, if not actual depression. My point is, No one who hasn't experienced severe depression can understand how horrible it is. No one should have to live like that, and if antidepressants can help, people should by all means try them. And for many people, 'fixing yourself' is either not possible, or requires major intervention prior to becoming a possibility.
However, I also have experience on the other side of the argument, which is that (unlike when I was young and possibly could have used antidepressants) in the last 5 years or so it seems like EVERY SINGLE DOCTOR wants to hand out prescriptions for antidepressants like fucking candy, even when I see them for physical symptoms that are most likely an unusual presentation of autoimmune disease (of which I have two confirmed already and suspect others may be lurking).
So, despite having two confirmed endocrine disorders AND two confirmed autoimmune diseases, any new physical symptoms I present inevitably result in most doctors offering me antidepressants, which is crazy and frustrating. So far, I've had two regular GPs, a neurologist, and an endo offer these within 15 minutes of meeting me, when I wasn't clinically depressed and was there about physical symptoms.
My suspicion is that there is indeed SOME percent of anti-ds that are needlessly prescribed, for the following reasons:
1) straight up sexism...I doubt doctors offer anti-ds so quickly to male patients presenting with mysterious physical ailments;
2) autoimmune diseases are increasing, and most are mysterious and frustrating for doctors and patients, and doctors want to be able to offer SOMETHING when they have no idea how to diagnose or treat;
3) big pharma pushes docs to prescribe them;
4) doctors figure that since patients suffering from challenging physical symptoms probably are depressed, or at least anxious, why not prescribe them?;
5) doctors are used to patients wanting a 'quick fix' in a pill (unlike me, who has been/is willing to make a lot of lifestyle changes to try to improve my condition).
On the other hand, I think depression that really could benefit from anti-ds is actually underdiagnosed, or the patients refuse to try anti-ds because of weird ideas about 'toughness' or some of the stone age attitudes expressed in this thread. I can think of several people right off the top of my head in my family and friend circle who might greatly benefit from trying them, but who deny that they struggle with depression or just don't recognize that how they feel isn't normal.