Review by Booklist Review
At 18, Hari ingested his first Paxil tablet for diagnosed depression and recalls how it felt like a chemical kiss. For the next 13 years, he continued swallowing increasing doses of the antidepressant medication, but alas, the sadness would always outrun it. From his personal experience, anecdotes, and interviews with experts, Hari became convinced that the public has been misinformed about depression and anxiety. Here he argues that the problem isn't solely altered brain chemistry. Rather, the sources of depression exist in society and the way we live lives increasingly disconnected from meaningful work, other people, important values (altruism, family time), the natural world, and an optimistic future. He compares depression to a form of grief lamenting an unfulfilled life and failed potential. His recommendations include reconnecting to community, gratifying employment, and social interaction. Hari concludes his discussion of the biological, psychological, and social causes of depression by reiterating his belief that the real imbalance in depressed lives lies not in the brain, but rather in spiritual and social difficulties It's not serotonin; it's society. --Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Hari (Chasing the Scream) explores common causes of anxiety and depression in contemporary society, proposing that antidepressants do not address the true nature of the problem. Critiquing the chemical-imbalance theory of depression as an idea sponsored by the self-interested pharmaceutical industry, he quotes one psychologist as saying, "The symptoms [of depression] are a messenger of a deeper problem." Hari interviews numerous psychologists who explain how factors such as loneliness, work-based dissatisfaction, and consumer culture can fuel mental-health issues. Chasing possible solutions to these problems, Hari's research takes him throughout the world. He stops in a Berlin housing project where tenants waged a yearlong protest against rising rents, fostering a sense of empowerment and unity among themselves. He also visits a London mental-health clinic where doctors prescribe community volunteer projects instead of pills and a Baltimore bicycle shop that uses a nonhierarchical workplace to give employees a sense of having a voice in the business. Hari aims to demonstrate that the feelings of depression and anxiety experienced by individuals are symptomatic of a larger societal ailment that must be addressed. He makes a good case for this theory, supplying the reader with overwhelming (and engrossing) evidence, though his preferred solutions are somewhat grandiose and utopian. Agent: Peter Robinson, Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.) (Jan. 2018) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Review by Library Journal Review
In what is likely to be considered a controversial alternative approach to treating depression, Hari, author of Chasing the Scream, a best-selling treatise on the war on drugs and addiction, has provided a fascinating alternative theory to the causes and treatments of depression (heretofore considered a chemical imbalance in the brain). As a long-time sufferer himself, Hari has a personal stake in an investigation that takes him to many sources around the world. Through personal observations and summaries of conversations with professionals in the field, Hari concludes that the sources of depression are most likely found in people who are disconnected from their work, lack sufficient social intimacies, and have lost their empathic need to connect with and understand others. In many ways, he argues that we need to rethink the fundamental causes of anxiety and mental illness and what role our environmental "disconnections" play. VERDICT This well-written and well-documented book offers a powerful argument against the pharmacological treatment of depression and raises some provocative arguments. Highly recommended.-Herbert E. Shapiro, Lifelong Learning Soc., Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Mining the root causes of depression and anxiety.Acclaimed British journalist Hari researched and wrote his bestselling debut, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2015), while pushing aside work on a subject that was much too personal to accept and scrutinize at the time. This book, the culmination of a 40,000-mile odyssey and hundreds of hours of interviews with social scientists and depression sufferers (including those who've recovered), presents a theory that directly challenges long-held beliefs about depression's causes and cures. The subject matter is exquisitely personal for the author, since he'd battled chronic melancholy since his teenage years and was prescribed the "chemical armor" of antidepressants well into his young adulthood. Though his dosage increased as the symptoms periodically resurfaced, he continued promoting his condition as a brain-induced malady with its time-tested cure being a strict regimen of pharmaceutical chemicals. Taking a different approach from the one he'd been following for most of his life, Hari introduces a new direction in the debate over the origins of depression, which he developed after deciding to cease all medication and become "chemically naked" at age 31. The author challenges classically held theories about depression and its remedies in chapters brought to life with interviews, personal observations, and field-professional summations. Perhaps most convincing is the author's thorough explanation of what he believes are the proven causes of depression and anxiety, which include disconnection from work, society, values, nature, and a secure future. These factors, humanized with anecdotes, personal history, and social science, directly contradict the chemical-imbalance hypothesis hard-wired into the contemporary medical community. Hari also chronicles his experiences with reconnective solutions, journeys that took him from a Berlin housing project to an Amish village to rediscover what he deems as the immense (natural) antidepressive benefits of meaningful work, social interaction, and selflessness.In a sure-to-be-controversial book, Hari delivers a weighty, well-supported, persuasive argument against treating depression pharmaceutically. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
