Publisher Description
“Am I happy enough?” This has been a pivotal question since America’s inception. “Am I not happy enough because I am depressed?” is a more recent version. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured—not as an illness but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way.
In the twenty years since their introduction, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine chests. Upwards of 30 million Americans are taking them at an annual cost of more than $10 billion. Even more important, Greenberg argues, it has become common, if not mandatory, to think of our unhappiness as a disease that can—and should—be treated by medication. Manufacturing Depression tells the story of how we got to this peculiar point in our history.
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“I sort of wish this book had a different title, but I’m not sure what that should be. Don’t assume you know what it’s going to say based on the title. This is an interesting look at the history of our ideas about depression – what it is, how it should diagnosed, how it’s treated (or not.) And, what I didn’t expect – a fairly detailed history of the pharmaceutical industry, including its propensity to develop drugs first and find a disease for them later. Greenberg delves into the Book of Job, the hallmark of suffering, and gives us results of modern-day clinical studies. He grapples with questions a lot of us grapple with – when is it depression and when is it “well, your life’s pretty crappy right now, of course you’re sad”? How long is it appropriate to grieve over a loss? Even if an anti-depressant is only working because of the placebo effect, should that matter? It’s still working. He doesn’t provide clear-cut answers, but he does provide food for thought.”
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Ida (4 out of 5 stars)
