Beyond the Shrink.. World health organization projected that every fourth Indian, by 2020,will be taking antidepressant or anti anxiety medication. The statistics is revised as WHO declares that 36% Indians are depressed. The real figure may be higher if other illnesses are added by strict clinical criteria. What does it mean? We are a nation of high psychiatric morbidity and a bad psychological health .If more than 50 percent of population has a mental baggage to carry in daily affairs the future may be scary. But is it an epidemic of psychiatric illnesses like diabetes or an artifact? Is it all disease or distress? The society needs to examine the important causative factors. The high level of stress and the changed focus of people in the liberal global India is the writing on the wall. The rush for material success where the profit and gain drives people rather than the pleasure of life is an oft -repeated discourse. The platter offered to handle stress is already overflowing. But a reactive mental health industry has much to contribute. Almost overpowered by pharmaceutical industry psychotropic medication are not only over prescribed but by everyone. In the absence of guidelines and a shortage of psychiatrist, most doctors who have 30-50% patients with psychiatric illnesses, freely prescribe drugs. The real danger has deeper ramifications and has socioeconomic roots. Impatience pushes the doctors to label the ‘problems of living’ and ‘social suffering’ as illness. What in olden times would have been handled with strength from inner, family or religious resources is depression and anxiety now. The labeling of life’s conflicts snatches people of their inner coping abilities and mind pushes the responsibility of life under the umbrella of treatment. One source of the myth of life long psychiatric medication emanates from this reluctance to let go off the crutches of medicine. If not now very soon we will have to debate, whether we explore our own inherent mechanism(India has enough psychotherapeutic elements in its culture) to stabilize the psyche or be ready to follow the Western model of life and disease .