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Summary
Summary
The bestselling author of Listening to Prozac, which revolutionized the way the public thinks about antidepressants and the culture in which they are so widely used, returns with a profound and original look at the condition those medications treat--depression.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
What is depression really, and how does society define it? Kramer, a famed psychiatrist and author of the 1993 bestseller Listening to Prozac, says he has written "an insistent argument that depression is a disease, one we would do well to oppose wholeheartedly." In making his argument, Kramer examines the cultural roots of notions about depression and underscores the gap between what we know scientifically and what we feel about the illness. Kramer traces depression from Hippocrates through the Renaissance and Romantic "cult of melancholy" to advances in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy, and at last to the disease we now know it to be. Kramer's curiosity drives the book forward as he ponders why we value artwork and literature built on despair: "certain of our aesthetic and intellectual preferences have been set by those who suffer... deeply." The book maintains the perfect balance between science and human interest, as the author details both psychiatric studies and personal experience. A comparison of the biochemical workings of depression with the physical and observable symptoms serves as an intellectual trip for readers and provides a thorough exploration of what Kramer dubs "the most devastating disease known to humankind." The book is rich with questions that engage the reader in an active dialogue: Why is society captive to depression's charm? And will this infatuation change with the emergence of more evidence regarding depression's severely disabling effects? Kramer leaves off with these questions to ponder. Resolute but not preachy, this book is an important addition to the growing public health campaign against depression. As for how we should define depression-perhaps it's best understood by its opposite: "A resilient mind, sustained by a resilient brain and body." One Spirit and Discover Book Club selections. (May 9) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A heartfelt argument that depression is not, as many would have it, a source of heroic melancholy and artistic genius, but, rather, a pathological condition that should, if possible, be eradicated. When Kramer (Clinical Psychiatry/Brown Univ.) made public appearances after publication of his best-selling Listening to Prozac (1993), audiences persistently challenged him with questions like, "What if Prozac had been available in van Gogh's time?" The assumption that suffering from mental illness is a prerequisite to genius and that humanity would be the poorer if depression were conquered is anathema to Kramer. Instead, he asserts, it is "the most devastating disease known to humankind," and to back up his claim he cites some astonishing statistics: $40 billion in lost productivity in the United States, for example, or 3 percent of GDP. In a wide-ranging essay that draws on his own life and on his years of treating patients, he explores the gap between common perceptions of depression and the scientific understanding of it. In the first of three parts here, "What It Is to Us," he looks at the charm of depression and its erotic power, at the way people are drawn to such precursors of depression as moodiness, passivity and vulnerability. In "What It Is," he reviews research in biological psychiatry and neuroscience that links depression to frank abnormalities in the nervous system, including problems in stress responses, repair of cells in critical brain regions, and small or malfunctioning hippocampus glands. Finally, in "What It Will Be," Kramer envisions a world without depression and lists benefits of its eradication. Without depression to fear, he says, we would be free to be quirky and neurotic, to take risks more openly and to love more generously--and we'd still have art and artists. While not predicting that depression will be eliminated anytime soon, Kramer brings hope to those afflicted by it. A clear, valuable exposition of the progress researchers are making in understanding an all-too-common disease. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Some dozen years after his surprise best-seller Listening to Prozac Kramer returns to the subject of depression, revealing that much more has been learned about it, enough to power a polemic--this book. Depression, Kramer suggests, is a disease whose reputation resembles those of tuberculosis, epilepsy, and other maladies once thought to distinguish as well as afflict their victims. In the first part of the book, he examines the attractiveness of depression that he has noticed affecting some of his patients, both depressives proper and men involved with depressive women, and that surfaces in modern literature, art, and thought that valorize the sad, alienated outsider and grim, dolorous moods. In the midst of that discussion, Kramer presents evidence of depression's debilitating physical effects on the brain; this he uses to refute romanticization of the condition. The book's second part presents more research and theory about depression, including studies concluding that depression is the most prevalent and by far the most costly medical condition in the U.S. Kramer is an excellent writer who makes the technical second part about as painless to absorb as anyone could. Still, many will breathe easier when, in the last part, he returns to the cultural construction of depression. He relates some autobiography attesting to his appreciation of alienation, but he asks that appreciation never be used to condone, trivialize, or prettify the depression that alienation often cloaks. We may be on the threshold of regarding depression as no more glamorous than the formerly aestheticized tuberculosis. Kramer urges us to feel that that time can't come soon enough. --Ray Olson Copyright 2005 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In his best-selling Listening to Prozac, psychiatrist Kramer (Brown Univ.) explored the social implications of psychotropic personality change; he did not address the actual effects of these drugs on the severely depressed, yet he was constantly asked, "What if van Gogh (or, in Denmark, Kierkegaard) had been given antidepressants?"-the suggestion being that depression, or the depressive personality, is important to the production of works of genius. This led to the present book, which examines the question, "If we could eradicate depression so that no human being ever suffered it again, would we?" His answer is a resounding yes; depression is a major cause of distress with no redeeming value. In the process, he argues that the idea of "heroic melancholy" is simply a way our culture has developed to cope with a disorder that we can't cure-analogous to the way that tuberculars were once thought to be especially sensitive and creative. Along the way, Kramer offers an excellent summary of current biochemical theories of depression. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/05.]-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
