Title: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
Details: Copyright 2018, Bloomsbury USA
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"What really causes depression and anxiety- and how can we really solve them?
Award-winning journalist Johann Hari suffered from depression since he was a child and started taking antidepressants when he was a teenager. He was told—like his entire generation—that his problem was caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. As an adult, trained in the social sciences, he began to investigate this question—and he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong.
Across the world, Hari discovered social scientists who were uncovering the real causes—and they are mostly not in our brains, but in the way we live today. Hari’s journey took him from the people living in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas, to an Amish community in Indiana, to an uprising in Berlin—all showing in vivid and dramatic detail these new insights. They lead to solutions radically different from the ones we have been offered up until now.
Just as Chasing the Scream transformed the global debate about addiction, with over twenty million views for his TED talk and the animation based on it, Lost Connections will lead us to a very different debate about depression and anxiety—one that shows how, together, we can end this epidemic."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'll be honest, I didn't want to read this book.
I was unimpressed by the concept, which I'd seen before, and the blurbs weren't helping.
Because I've read this book (or what I thought was this book) before, many times, via ill-thought out "think pieces" or "think-piece-stretched-out-to-oversimpli
So when I first saw this, I disregarded it. I assumed it was yet another author who had no idea of how Depression actually works, misuses drugs and treatment (and so dismisses both along with the reason they were trying either in the first place), and/or simplifies Depression into just a symptom of "our society" by which they mean whatever aspect of modern life is currently annoying them/confusing them the most, usually some form of technology.
But I saw this book again, and in a fit of pique, actually started reading it and it was engaging enough to give it a chance.
How I Liked It: Depression is a legitimate disorder that can wound uniquely and is potentially fatal. Depression is exacerbated and encouraged by many, many factors in late-stage capitalist Western society. These two concepts can exist together and should both be taken into account, according to the author.
The book has a good strong start, with the author relating a story of a treatment that fuels his concept for a good portion of the book (suffering from food poisoning in Vietnam, the doctor offered him "You need your nausea. It is a message. It will tell us what is wrong with you.") and then veers dangerously near (at least, if you didn't finish the book) to the type of book I feared. He relates his own experience with Depression, which is misinformation combined with bad advice (he started antidepressants as a teenager before trying any therapy) and taking his medication irresponsibly (he took more of his SSRI when he was especially sad, and offered it to friends when they felt down). He relays that despite being Depressed and feeling it, he still stayed on the medication up until his thirties, still believing what he was told years before, that his brain was born broken and medication (and apparently only medication) would correct it.
Fortunately, it's uphill from there. The author presents a well-sourced history of treatments, and of the pharmaceutical industry's connection to Depression in the West. He then moves on to the various causes for Depression (including childhood trauma, grief, and disconnection from meaningful work, among many others) and various possible treatments (or "reconnections").
While extensive sources are provided throughout, a few of the author's assertions are refutable right off the bat.
Social media and online connection, depending on how it is used is not a lesser form of social communication than meeting up with people in person, and given that the book devotes a good portion to work and free time, the fact you can instantly connect with friends around the world and not have to rely on when either of you might have a chance to meet up and talk in person should not be so easily dismissable.
A harder point to refute is that someone may stay in a well-paying job that makes them unhappy rather than a not-as-well-paying job that delights not because they feel they have to have and maintain the accoutrements of success (the right car, the right house, the right things), it's that making that kind of lifestyle change is usually pretty hard, especially when Depressed (to say nothing of the fact the case in question the author describes would involve a change of state).
Overall, though, this is still an important and thought-provoking book that asks the questions the "think-pieces" and "think-piece books" I lamented should be asking. Both the personal and the larger societal issues that affect Depression do intersect and it's worth acknowledging and exploring that.
Notable: Given that so many of the causes of Depression (the lost connections) explicitly involve capitalism, and the fact pharmaceutical companies are allowed to influence not only the treatment but the public perception of the disorder, you'd think the author would mention the need for improved healthcare (everyone has assess to a qualified therapist), better government oversight, improved workers' rights, or any of the other dire needs to offset so much (but not all, I caution) of what he deems the causes of Depression. So why not say it? I'm aware that for many, this book is already going to be a (sorry) a hard pill to swallow. Perhaps challenging that capitalism is anything other than beneficial to human life would make the other concepts presented even less worth considering, particularly in the current political climate.
Final Grade: A
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