Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians in Britain claims that ‘time spent planting, pruning and propagating can be more powerful than a dose of expensive anti-depressant drugs”. Not surprisingly, the NHS is advising GPs to prescribe gardening rather than pills as a way to help individuals to beat depression. No doubt this shift from medication to horticulture is largely motivated by economics – much cheaper and, whilst not everybody is a horticulturist, most people can engage in some gardening activities – hedge-clipping, mowing the lawn, weeding, planting, watering plants and just the enjoyment of being outdoors. The shift is also due to the ever-increasing tide of evidence that the chemical properties of anti-depressants don’t have any therapeutic effects and that what works is the hope provided – known as the placebo effect (see Irving Kirsch’s book ‘The Emperor’ s New Drugs’ and Joanna Moncrieff’s ‘The Myth of the Chemical Cure’ which was shortlisted for the Mind Book of the Year 2009).

At a recent mental health forum on ‘Depression in Rural Ireland’ held in Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Dr. Bhamjee, a psychiatrist, said that ‘there is growing scientific evidence that adding trace amounts of the drug lithium to a water supply can lower rates of depression and suicide. I’m not sure what research the psychiatrist was relying upon, because very up-to-date research goes quite contrary to the above quoted assertion. There is also Dr. Bhamjee’s unsubstantiated assumption that depression is a neuro-biological condition rather than an emotion that arises to draw attention to struggles within the individual who is distressed. Surely, the fact that the suicide rate increases by 25 per cent during times of international economic recessions points to and supports that depression is due to problems in living and not some theoretical chemical imbalance!