Mal Fletcher comments on the rise of anxiety disorders and an over-reliance on science

With all the goodwill in the world, medical professionals can't offer this kind of intimacy - and they shouldn't be expected to. Drugs are offered as a way to help us to function, at least at a very basic level.

This brings me to the second factor that feeds the modern beast of over-prescribing drugs.

Science Rules, OK?

It is, simply put, our tendency as a culture to believe that medical science - and science in general - holds the key to overcoming almost every human affliction.

Some social commentators have long warned that we are over-reliant on the NHS and on the medical profession generally.

People will call for a doctor's appointment when they or their children have little more than a sniffle. In part, this is driven by economic and social factors; sickness costs money, reduces productivity and places strains on relationships.

Sometimes it is also driven by fear. If I don't receive professional care for this relatively minor ailment, will I face a far worse predicament further down the line?

In the end, our almost blind faith in doctors is a problem, because it prevents us from learning to stand on our own feet, at least in terms of lesser ailments. But it also reflects a wider issue - our almost unquestioning admiration for all things scientific.

For millennia, societies have reserved a place of special favour and status for healers. In many modern societies, doctors still regularly top the list of professionals whom people admire and trust.

In post-Enlightenment times, medicine may be the most admired of the sciences, but it is not the only one that benefits from high levels of public esteem. Arguably, our faith not just in medicine but in science generally has never been stronger than it is today.

Medicine, the most humane of all the sciences, is now linked more closely than ever to other branches of science, such as chemistry. Overworked medicos rely heavily upon products and online guidance provided by chemists and others within the pharmaceutical industry.

Science is treated with a respect bordering on reverence. We treat the prognostications of eminent scientists such as Stephen Hawking as almost being inviolable. It is as if the scientific method is the only one capable of discovering what is true in this world - and what is best for us.

How often do we find ourselves accepting something simply because it is prefaced with the phrase 'scientific studies have shown...'?

In the process, we fail to recognise the fact that science is as much about questions as it is about certainties, and often more so. The scientific method is at its best when someone is questioning the received wisdom and challenging the status quo, in the hunt for better explanations and paradigms.