An antidepressant, or a yak?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -Shakespeare

Something that we do not often think about when taking psychiatric medications is the effect of how our beliefs shape our experience with medications. In the book Lost Connections by Johan Harri, he tells a story of a man who lost both legs while working the fields in a rice paddy in Vietnam due to an unexploded land mine. The man was extremely depressed, and the local physician said he was treated with an antidepressant. When asked what type of antidepressant was prescribed, the physician said that a yak was prescribed. This led to some confusion, but as the story unfolds, the Yak gave this rice farmer an new livelihood, and a new purpose, and his depression resolved. Antidepressants don’t always have to be pills, sometimes they can be yaks. The name we give to things, have an incredible impact on how something is experienced.