We still face the same problem that doctors did in Luke’s Gospel. We encounter diseases that we struggle to accurately diagnose and effectively treat. And patients endure much.
The purpose of this book is to look at another area of medicine in which patients face the kind of problems this woman faced. The diagnosis and treatment of the disease do not result in a rapid and complete cure. The cost of treatment and the lost wages are a significant burden to those affected. Yet in a significant number of cases, the real solution may be found in a meaningful encounter with the “Great Physician.”
Recent research would indicate that the current medical treatments do not seem to work well for many who are identified as depressed. At the same time, there is concern that the way we make the diagnosis will apply the label of depressed to many who actually have emotional struggles but no disease. There is also some indication that medicines may not be working as well as they did in the past. Instead of finding a cause and cure for depression, we seem to be diagnosing more people with depression, but with questionable benefit4 and significant side effects.
from Good Mood, Bad Mood by Dr. Charles Hodges