>If a situation is causing no problems outside of depression/anxiety, and you took away the depression/anxiety mechanism, there would be nothing wrong with it.
The article's premise is that having one's core psychological needs go unmet is like having a broken bone.
If you take away the pain from a broken bone, you still have a broken bone. As you say, there is nothing wrong with taking the pain away. But the bone is still broken, and limits you in ways that a healthy bone would not.
Taking away the symptoms of an unwell psyche still leaves you disabled, even if it isn't as outwardly evident as a broken bone.
Yes but giving someone antidepressants for 30 years is like giving someone advil 30 years for a broken bone. Set the bone, then do advil for a week while it sets. But this isn't how drugs are used in the US. You get on them as a lifelong journey.
If you have a broken bone, it causes you serious problems outside of the pain. The pain is mildly important to alert you, and not very important after that.
Setting the bone is important, but if the pain makes it harder to fix the bone, drug it away asap.
And sometimes non-broken bones ache. No need to suffer it.
The article's premise is that having one's core psychological needs go unmet is like having a broken bone.
If you take away the pain from a broken bone, you still have a broken bone. As you say, there is nothing wrong with taking the pain away. But the bone is still broken, and limits you in ways that a healthy bone would not.
Taking away the symptoms of an unwell psyche still leaves you disabled, even if it isn't as outwardly evident as a broken bone.