Reading Log n24

Title:When sadness is a good thing
Link:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653643,00.html
Date: August 16th,2007

Vocabulary

1-quaint: strange, peculiar, or unusual in an interesting, pleasing, or amusing way: a quaint sense of humor.
2-tout:to describe or advertise boastfully; publicize or promote; praise extravagantly: a highly touted nightclub.
3-dejection:depression or lowness of spirits.
4-bereavement: state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one
5-prompt:to move or induce to action.
6-dean:the head of a faculty, school, or administrative division in a university or college: the dean of admissions.
7-trait:A genetically determined characteristic or condition: a recessive trait.
8-outpatient:a patient who receives treatment at a hospital, as in an emergency room or clinic, but is not hospitalized.
9-BlackBerry: a wireless handheld device with e-mail, telephone, text messaging, Internet faxing and browsing services, and PDA applications.
10-compendium:a brief treatment or account of a subject, esp. an extensive subject; concise treatise: a compendium of medicine.

Summary

In the 60´s there were ads that touted a tranquilizer for people who feel sad because of the normal vicissitudes of life.This ad was quickly stopped by the FDA because it was dangerous for people to take drugs whenever they feel blue and without a mediacl treatment.
Nowadays,comparing with the 60´s,there are more people taking antidepressants and traquilizers than ever before;there is a legal drug culture that is socially accepted and there is the idea that being sad is an illness.However,experts agree that this practise is dangerous,because people tens to confuse normal sadness,which appears after the lose of something important in someone´s life,and a depressive disorder.
In this era,there has been a change in the definition of the depressive disorders,and nowadays anytime a person feels blue for a time he or she is treated as he or she as a depressive disorder.It is necessary to make a broad definition of what is a mental and emotional disorder such as depression to prevent people who suffer for a normal melancholy to be treated as an illness.We have to know that this feeling of misery and sadness after something unwanted has happened is normal and we don´t need to take medicine to cope with it.

Personal Reaction

The topic dealt in this article reminds of the novel"Brave New World"where people take a drug similar to an antidepressant called Soma each time they feel slightly unhappy.I agree with the author of this article;I think that we are a society which is accustumed to legal drugs and to take them without responsability and a proper medical control.We always take drugs not only when we feel sad but also when we are suffering from any small pain.
We have to realize that this practice is very dangerous and also this make us reflect about the quality of the lifestyle we are leading.The increase in the abuse of legal drugs makes us think about the way our society is made and the way we behave when we have to face everyday problems.