I saw Dalai Lama in Tokyo last year, he was coming to give a lectures on Buddhism and science. During question time a japanese man came and asked about a friend who is “hikikomori” , its a state when person cannot live his house and avoid social contact of any kind, a man asked how he can help his friend.

and Dalai Lama gave a most sincere answer. He said that even if Buddha was alive he couls not help your friend… cause probably he ignored his inner world and state for so long that end up in that situation, and there is no magic pill for that. its a hard and time consuming work to heal oneself that demands effort and work through heart.

and later he continued talking that most of “psychological” and “inner” illness is the result of society and education that is too much concentrated on outward world and ignore the inner well being of a person. we grew up ignoring the mind, heart and soul.

i think that is how we deal with this kind of illnesses, by starting working on our inner world, dwell into wisdom of humanity and use tools that it found to deal with them. it may be psychology, it may be religion, it may be any other practical philosophy that were proven effective through times. I believe that accepting depression as illness is not enough, accepting the reality of inner world, spirituality, power and effects of thoughts and deeds on our psyche is where we should begin. only than we can start to use the tools to heal those kind of illnesses.