How often do you hear someone saying that X shouldn't be depressed or anxious or distressed because they have a great life compared to people in other countries who have real problems to worry about, like drought and famine and earthquakes and civil war. They should consider themselves lucky to have such minor problems.
But those problems aren't minor to the people coping with them. Severe psychological blocks that interfere with your life and your relationships need to be properly responded to and not dismissed out of hand.
It all assumes a sort of "league table of suffering" in which one person's suffering is rated as low down the table and someone else's suffering is way up at the top. As if X's suffering is not true suffering but Y's suffering is the real thing.
But suffering is suffering. Is my desperate grief over the loss of a loved one any less important than the misery of an earthquake victim who has lost her home? To an onlooker, one might seem less significant than the other, but to the person concerned their distress might be totally overwhelming and incapacitating.
Certainly I'd be pretty pissed off if I was severely depressed and someone said to me "Oh, you're not really depressed, Nick. You're simply not the type. You're as tough as old boots. Just give yourself a good talking-to and you'll be fine." Which would be about as helpful as a kick up the bum.
