The thesis isn't that they're bad, but an incomplete part of the picture. We in the West like simple solutions to complex problems. Throwing medication at your depression and calling it a day is no more effective for mental health than dropping money out of a helicopter is for improving the economy.

The key role that medication plays is to shake you out of a vicious cycle; it gives you a window, a break from the deepening groove your mind has gotten itself into so that you have the capacity to do other things that will have a more lasting effect. It doesn't solve the problem all by itself, yet many people expect it to.

(Speaking as someone who's dealt with depression and who has many friends with varying combinations of depression and anxiety, who have taken varying strategies for dealing with them.)

Agreed. Antidepressants can be very helpful.

The many, unpredictable, and very real, negative side effects of anti-depressants can completely outweigh any of the dubious positives, especially when it's impossible to tell which of dozen or so available marketed drugs will or will not have a greater slew of said effects. It's a nasty game of Russian Roulette which can potentially make the depression far worse than if the sufferer decided to err on the side of caution, and not take them at all.

The negatives have affected many people, and who knows just how many and even how bad the side effects are for people.

Being driven over the edge, to suicide, is horrifying effect of some of the drugs. Others have gone on killing sprees because the drugs drove them insane, while taking them or from the withdrawal effects.