China As I said to tigger, all these things are important, but there are so many subjects under discussion here that one thing leads to another. Mental health is important, but it doesn't threaten society as a whole in the same way that conflicting religions do, which is why, I suppose, the debate centred around that for a while. I do believe that depression and mental illness can have genetic links, although not necessarily in all cases. In my opinion mental illness can be the result of learned behaviour. For example, I know someone who has bleated on for years about her 'nerves', her phobias and her panic attacks - and her daughter, although displaying different phobias, behaves in precisely the same way, and like her mother has for years, lives on pills and potions. In that case I don't believe it's genetic - I believe it's learned. Whilst some mental illness is no doubt very genuine, perhaps in other cases we have lost the ability to deal with our own problems. We live in a 'victim' society - everyone seems to be a 'victim' of something, and everything is someone else's fault. With that, for every problem there is now a counsellor, which I believe is not always helpful, since it often prolongs the symptoms by concentrating long term on the causes, rather than encouraging people to think positively, to gather strength, and to move on.