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Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease (Hardcover)
Description
• Author with professional and personal experience: Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg’s musings on the intersection of science, politics, and ethics have graced the pages of The New Yorker , Wired , and Mother Jones. A longtime sufferer of depression, in 2007 he enrolled himself in a clinical trial for major depression (after his initial application for a minor depression trial was rejected). He wrote about his experience in a Harper’s magazine piece, which received a tremendous response from readers..
• “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. 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..
• A nation of depressives: 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. .
About the Author
Gary Greenberg is a practicing psychotherapist in Connecticut and author of The Noble Lie. He has written about the intersection of science, politics, and ethics for many publications, including Harper's, the New Yorker, Wired, Discover, Rolling Stone, and Mother Jones, where he's a contributing writer.
Praise for Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease…
“A lucid and revealing book…an unusually amusing, moving, and spirited account.” —Adam Phillips, The Nation
“[Greenberg] is an unusually eloquent writer, and his book offers a grand tour of the history of modern medicine, as well as an up-close look at contemporary practices." —Louis Menand, The New Yorker
“A dizzying, dazzling critique. It is probably the most thoughtful book on depression ever written." —Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D., Psychology Today
“Manufacturing Depression is full of fascinating stories...Greenberg's greatest contribution, though, is insisting on few certainties, and in offering himself to us." —Liz Else, New Scientist
“In a medicalized world of specious concepts where false hope has taken the form of a diagnosis and a pill, the only way to challenge current thinking is with a sledgehammer, or a copy of Manufacturing Depression. And best of all, this may be the funniest book on depression ever.” —Errol Morris, Academy Award-winning director of The Fog of War
“Greenberg[‘s] bouts of deep depressions [are] smartly conveyed here, including [his] participation in a clinical trial for an antidepressant…the author engages in extended, illuminating discussions of a host of therapeutic techniques, the confounding power of the placebo effect, the evolution of psychopharmacology and the ways in which expectations shape response. A humanistic, witty exploration of the human response to depression.” —Kirkus
“Greenberg elegantly dissects the medical-research-pharmaceutical complex….A splendid, witty analysis of how we came to give up the stories of our lives in favor of analyzing the alphabet of which the stories are made. An essential read for all invested in medicine and social science.” —Library Journal, starred review