Posted on 04/18/2005 2:02:49 PM PDT by BillCompton
Germany's new 'great depression'
The Deutsche Bank headquarters, Frankfurt Vast swathes of German office space now stand empty Record numbers of Germans are suffering from depression and other mental illnesses, a new report says.
According to the research, by a German health insurance firm, cases of depression among Berliners have risen by 70% since 1997.
Up to 70% of Germans also say they are prepared to seek professional help for psychological problems.
Mental health experts blamed the rise on Germany's faltering economy, which has seen unemployment rise to over 5m.
German insurance firm DAK surveyed 2.6m employed Germans in an effort to discover the impact depression is having on modern working patterns.
How will someone ever get better when they know their boss is just waiting to fire them? Burghard Klopp Charité Hospital, Berlin Among the respondents were 90,000 people working in Berlin, where treatment is widely available.
In contrast, fewer people reported feeling low in Germany's eastern states, where jobs and security are increasingly scarce, but mental health treatment is rarer and some taboos still exist.
Vicious circle
Workers in Germany's capital, regarded as one of Europe's most vibrant modern cities, emerged as an unhappy bunch more likely to miss work through depression than for any other reason.
Nationally, mental health problems were the fourth most common cause of absence from work, behind back pain, colds and flu and personal injury.
"In times of economic insecurity, young people in particular tend to develop psychological problems in response to professional and private obstacles," said DAK's Chief Executive Herbert Rebscher.
The report also blames modern working culture for the rise, especially among young people, although increasing numbers of elderly Germans also say they suffer from some form of psychological illness.
Psychological problems in men between 25 and 29 and women between 20 and 24 have doubled, the DAK reports says.
Nevertheless, most respondents said they would rather be depressed with a job than unemployed and happy.
"How will someone ever get better," Burghard Klopp, a depression expert at Berlin's Charité hospital, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, "when they know their boss is just waiting to fire them?"
Yep, we need to be just like Europe. We are so far behind.
They need W to go over there and give them a pre-emptive dose of capitalism.
Sage advice. I would only add that I think it likely that at least some of this depression comes from living in a society so constricted economically that the average person sees no chance whatsoever of becoming successful to the extent that they could live like the images they get hammered with on TV since birth. To have no hope is to be depressed.
They have a double digit unemployment rate and 6 weeks of government paid vacation. Its a socialists paradise! Why so glum?
Behold, I give you... Socialism.
I was talking to my German sister-in-law one day, and the conversation turned to comedians. I asked her what kind of comedians they had back in the old country. "Dear," she flatly said, "nothing is funny in Germany."
Germans (in fact, the vast majority of Europeans) would rather be miserable Socialists than happy Conservatives.
Why don't they simply tax their way out of this problem?
I think they might be like the Arabs. They've had socialism forced on them so long they don't know what freedom is, until they taste it, or someone force feeds them.
They turned their backs on America, They see us a evil, that's twisted in both mind and soul. It doesn't surprise me they are a country of depressed people.
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