If you don't get the right diagnosis for your depression, you won't get the right treatment. I have written many times about the importance of getting care for a serious mental illness, such as major depression, from a psychiatrist. Yet according to the Wall Street Journal over half of all antidepressant and antipsychotic prescriptions are written by general practioners or primary care physicians. This static has always confounded me. Psychiatrists are specially trained in diagnosing, assessing and treating mental illnesses. Psychiatrists are up-to-date on the latest drugs to treat specific mental illnesses, while primary care physicians are kept up-to-date on the latest drugs covering a broad range of illnesses.

In the once-a-decade report funded by the National Institutes of Health( June 2005), researchers found that one-quarter of Americans had a psychiatric disorder in the year prior to the survey, and 40% of them sought treatment, up from just 25% who sought treatment in the previous report a decade ago. What researchers said was particularly troubling was that, of those who did turn to traditional medicine, just 48% of those who went to psychiatrists got the "minimally adequate care," while only 12% of those who went to general doctors did.

About half of people who seek help for a mental illness see a general doctor, not a specialist. The survey didn't ask people why, but mental-health experts say that people often turn first to a primary-care doctor for a variety of reasons, including a lack of qualified specialists in their vicinity, lack of insurance coverage for mental-health services or lack of confidence in someone other than their family physician.

In my opinion, if you don