Mind control

We're back on the subject of primacy of our mind, and it being the defining character of our identities (yeah, yeah, it is obvious...).

This friend of mine and I were having this chat on depression and I was slightly taken aback when I had stiff resistance to the suggestion that antidepressants may be useful. Mentally cursing Tom Cruise and his Scientology shit (I mean, look at the man, he could do with a low dose anti-psychotic.. okie, I'm joking there), I got around to attempting to convince him that anti-depressants are nonaddictive and not gonna make you a slave to them for the rest of our lives. Half way around I was beginning to realize that this is not about anti-depressants but the idea of using mind medicines, and the resistance to accepting the concept of a diseased mind. Before we get stuck in spirals of definitions of disease and normalcy, let me clarify that i mean a deviation from a state which would help us function with optimal efficiency and productivity, or something like what WHO defines it to be. I mean, people would find it so much more easier if one were to do functional MRIs and demonstrate hypo-frontality, or demonstrate decreased CSF serotonin metabolites. Well, it is true that it is not universal in depression and not consistent.

Anyway, coming back to the issue of antidepressants, what people would essentially be scared of is the fact that it would mean that we are admitting to giving up some degree of control over our own mind. Which brings us to the concepts of the idea of mind as an ephemeral concept independent of our body over which we are meant to have full control of. Won't that be rather unmindful of the role of the organ that our brain is, especially the pre-frontal cortex and the limbic parts? Parts which could get diseased and produce symptoms. What could we expect those symptoms to be...?

But of course, we could also conceptualize depression as an inability to deal with a life stressor, which could mean a personality (forebrain) predisposition to this, or that the stress was quite severe. In either case, we may not be able to equate it to the 'biological' depressions. And the role of antidepressants may be questionable.

The question really is this? Are we obliged to have complete control of our minds, or is that a societal sanction to prevent irrational and acceptable behavior. Of course, it is a nice ideal to have complete and unalienable control over our minds, but could it be possible in allow sigma biological system?
:)..

Holding on..

osho