Bad metaphors for chronic pain don't really help here.

There probably aren't any scenarios where, if you just removed the depression/anxiety "everything else" would be just fine.

What has happened is this: mainstream culture claims that these scenarios are fine when they are not, and so people seek to remove the depression and/or anxiety from them without even questioning whether the scenarios themselves are very healthy.

You're unable (unwilling) to accept that these circumstances are bad. You don't want to change them, you want reality to be something other than it is so that your culture can continue as it has without changing and growing. You would prefer that people numb themselves to it rather than address these defects.

The article's example is full of these.

* People pushed into college who do not want to be there * Parents of young children divorcing * Parents of young children remarrying * Shallow friendships * Hookups

These are not problems that will be easier to fix if he's doped up on prozac, they aren't problems you probably even want to acknowledge as such.