The controversial question of whether doctors are prescribing drugs to treat normal feelings such as grief is among issues to be examined in a University of Otago symposium this weekend.
The interdisciplinary conference "Mental Health: Are We on the Right Track?" is the first in what will be an annual series organised by the department of general practice, designed to tackle a current controversy.
Conference convener Dr Monika Clark-Grill said GPs increasingly felt in a bind over the issue of antidepressant prescribing.
They were encouraged to look for depression because it was considered to be under-diagnosed and felt they needed to provide patients with something therapeutic, but were also aware of concerns that antidepressant medications might be over-prescribed.
They could also feel they had no option other than medication for patients as counselling was severely underfunded.
The symposium was designed to allow GPs to address such issues with those outside the profession, including nurses, counsellors, therapists, policy-makers and members of the general public.
Up to 90 people are expected to attend the two-day gathering, which includes an open lecture at 5pm on Saturday in the St David Lecture Theatre by Australian Karen Masman, author of The Uses of Sadness.
She believes feeling sad is no reason not to be happy and rather than finding sadness wrong or shameful, it can be a time which offers many opportunities.
She advocates people getting to know their own sadness better and understanding its cycle.
"Learning how to digest sadness with a generous heart and keen perception, yet without self-indulgence, is part of learning how to be happy," she said.
Dr Clark-Grill said one of the difficulties for GPs and patients was being able to determine the difference between sadness and depression and the symptoms had to be put in context.
Among the topics to be covered in presentations will be the depression epidemic in the Western world, the marketing of psychiatric drugs and the relevance of online therapy for depression.
Dr Clark-Grill said an important role of the symposium was in providing the opportunity for people to share perspectives in a series of workshops.
Recommendations from the workshops will be summarised for all by a panel at the end of the conference.