Just finished Johann Hari's book, Lost Connections

[mnhtnbb]

Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression--and the Unexpected Solutions.

For those of us who have been numbed, anxious, and depressed since November 2016, this book explains it--and a lot more. For those who have been led to believe depression is a malfunction in brain chemistry to be fixed by a drug, this book will be a real eye opener.

Hari sums up in his last chapter

One you understand that depression is to a significant degree a collective problem caused by something that's gone wrong in our culture, it becomes obvious that the solutions have to be--to a significant degree--collective, too.

From the dust cover blurb

Across the world, Hari found social scientists who were uncovering evidence that depression and anxiety are in fact caused by some crucial and growing problems with the way we live today. Hari's journey took him from a mind-blowing series of experiments in Baltimore, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin. Once he had uncovered nine real causes of these problems, they led him to scientists who are discovering very different solutions--ones that work.

Fascinating book. Incredibly well researched. Easy to read. I recommend it without reservation.

[DonCoquixote]

1. it is one thing to say that culture can make depression worse

Just as french soil makes wine grape grow, a bad culture can make problems grow, but what I resent is the idea that this feeds into the idea that depression is not a chemical, the old song that if only we were good people, all this would go away. That is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to utopias, which leads to dystopias once utopias clash with reality.

[mnhtnbb]

2. " if only we were good people, all this would go away"

That is not even close to where the author is headed with the book.

Really, I would encourage you to read the book. It is tremendously well researched. There is a lot of money--billions of dollars---at stake in the pharmaceutical industry promoting the concept that depression is only biological. The research says otherwise.

[PETRUS]

3. I've had my eye on that title for a while.

Glad you recommend it!