This might make some wonder if electroshock is such a good idea. True, it's not a concussion but it's certainly a closed head injury.

I agree with you, Francesca, and I'm wondering what others have to say on this line of reasoning...

The NYTimes articles about this link between depression and concussions strikes me as bizarre. It sounds to me like what is being theorized is that whan a highly paid professional athelte suffers a debilitating physical injury that is at least partially responsible for the athelete no longer being able to play the sport he was paid to play, the athelete becomes really unhappy. Maybe an investigation should be conducted into whether aging Hollywood Sex Symbols become depressed when plastic surgery fails.

More troubling is the idea that when an athelete who has had a concussion is sad, it validates the idea that all unhappiness is caused by chemical imbalance unrelated to life experiences and thus can only be cured with drugs.

Perhaps the depressed athelte could deal with his depression by learning to seperate his identity from his former glory days through the support of compassionate and loving humans.

I had a major concussion and severe head trauma from a head on car accident.[am bipolar] I also believe that any trauma to the brain, whether it is stroke, concussion or psychiatric over-medication can cause permanent damage to the brain, and psychiatric symptoms can result. Whether or not this could be used as a diagnostic tool is a different story. But there is a common thread.

I totally agree with Stephany.
I am a psychiatrist and have become aware over the decades that, when people have bipolar disorder and a negative family history, then one must hunt for the contributing head injuries even though they might seem ever so minor.
I have also learned that that patient, his/her friends,and even the family may not recall the head injury(s). Good detective work is neccesary. Many head injuries are associated with amnesia, for the period during the loss of consciousness: and also for a period before and after the head injury. Let us never forget that. Head injuries render the person very liable to forgetting that they have been injured.
When I see people with treatment resistant depressive disorders I also enquire about a history of head injury. because I think that the addition of physical brain damage adds to the disabilities caused by the physiological brain damage that Is what the Disorder of the Mind is about.
I could go on for ages : but will say just one more thing: the head is not demarkated from the body at the neck ! Everything affects everything else.
Dr Julia Aranui-Faed
New Zealand

Julia,

You've hit on the problem. If you argue that head injuries cause incurable psychiatric disorders, you are in fact arguing that the head is demarketed from not just the body but also from the entire social context in which it exists. To say that mood and affect are caused by things other than the independent mechanics of the brain is in no way to belitte the effect environment has on behavior. People with brain injuries can and do recover. People with brain injuries can and do sometimes perceive and behave differently from others, but then don't we all.