I think Johann Hari has the gist right: in the vast majority of cases, depression is a signal from the body of some biological/social/emotional needs that aren't being met, rather than necessarily being an immutable medical condition.

For n=1, I've struggled with (manic) depression and anxiety most of my life. And while I've used a variety of strategies to cope (Seligman's "Learned Optimism" and a potpourri of Buddhist ideas were incredibly helpful), the secret sauce was getting off of sugar and junk food. When I'm staying on a whole-foods, keto-ish diet, mood swings and unwanted negative thoughts have their volume is turned down by 90%, making the remainder relatively easy to process.

Everybody's different, so YMMV; in some cases, medication are an appropriate tool. But there are some universals that basically benefit every human: drink more water, get more sleep, go for a walk in the sunshine, eat your vegetables, and the less sugar (probably) the better.

The phenomenological impact of poor diet and harsh glycemic index ASDR cannot be overstated. 'refined sugars negatively impact mood and emotional well-being' might be one of the most rock solid universals of human nature.

All medical interventions should include the no-brainer diet, vitamins, exercise, self-esteem interventions.

> Most forms of depression can be cured with self-care.

That's a very strong claim to make so nonchalantly and confidently without referring to a source.

Simplistic in the extreme, especially given nobody has ever really enumerated all the (many, many) forms of depression in a meaningful way.

As the saying goes: have you tried self-conducted sleep deprivation, exercise, improved diet, vitamin d, sun lamps, having sex, talk therapy, or any of the clinically evaluated pharmchems yet? Why not?