Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern DiseaseAm I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinets—doctors now write 120 million prescriptions annually, at a cost of more than 10 billion dollars. At the same time, depression rates have skyrocketed; twenty percent of Americans are now expected to suffer from it during their lives. Doctors, and drug companies, claim that this convergence is a public health triumph: the recognition and treatment of an under-diagnosed illness. Gary Greenberg, a practicing therapist and longtime depressive, raises a more disturbing possibility: that the disease has been manufactured to suit (and sell) the cure. Greenberg draws on sources ranging from the Bible to current medical journals to show how the idea that unhappiness is an illness has been packaged and sold by brilliant scientists and shrewd marketing experts—and why it has been so successful. Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposé—including a vivid chronicle of his participation in a clinical antidepressant trial—Manufacturing Depression is an incisive look at an epidemic that has changed the way we have come to think of ourselves. |
From inside the book
Page 7
... to Peter kramer. one of the strangest things about the antidepressant revolution, and one indication that more is going on here than biochemistry, is that the drugs that started it—the SSrIs, which first appeared Mollusks 7.
... to Peter kramer. one of the strangest things about the antidepressant revolution, and one indication that more is going on here than biochemistry, is that the drugs that started it—the SSrIs, which first appeared Mollusks 7.
Page 8
... kramer's Listening to Prozac, which began to fly off of bookstore shelves in the mid-1990s, about the same time that Prozac prescriptions began to fly off of doctors' pads. kramer managed to articulate something that all of us—patients ...
... kramer's Listening to Prozac, which began to fly off of bookstore shelves in the mid-1990s, about the same time that Prozac prescriptions began to fly off of doctors' pads. kramer managed to articulate something that all of us—patients ...
Page 9
... kramer speculates that questions like these may already be pointless. By now, asking about the virtue of Prozac. . . may seem like asking whether it was a good thing for Freud to have discovered the unconscious. once we are aware of the ...
... kramer speculates that questions like these may already be pointless. By now, asking about the virtue of Prozac. . . may seem like asking whether it was a good thing for Freud to have discovered the unconscious. once we are aware of the ...
Page 20
... kramer wrote “depression is neither more nor less than illness, but illness merely.” Being depressed is not simply a response to circumstance, he argued, although it can be kindled by events in our lives. Neither is it a sign of ...
... kramer wrote “depression is neither more nor less than illness, but illness merely.” Being depressed is not simply a response to circumstance, he argued, although it can be kindled by events in our lives. Neither is it a sign of ...
Page 21
... kramer went on—to a time when “the eradication of depression [will] seem unremarkable as a . . . social goal.” only one thing stands in the way of achieving that goal, kramer wrote: ignorance. It takes many forms, but one of them is ...
... kramer went on—to a time when “the eradication of depression [will] seem unremarkable as a . . . social goal.” only one thing stands in the way of achieving that goal, kramer wrote: ignorance. It takes many forms, but one of them is ...
Other editions - View all
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease Gary Greenberg Limited preview - 2010 |
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease Gary Greenberg No preview available - 2011 |
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease Gary Greenberg No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
Adolf Meyer American Psychiatric antidepressants Arvid Carlsson asked Beck better brain called cause chemical claim clinical trial cognitive therapy cure depres depression doctors diagnosis didn’t disease disorder dose drug companies dSM-III exactly experience fact feel Freud Gaddum going happened Healy Hofmann hospital Ibid idea imipramine industry insanity insulin iproniazid Job’s ketamine kline kraepelin kramer least lives look magic bullets major depressive matter Mauve MdMA means medicine Meduna melancholia ment mental illness Meyer mind neurosis numbers Papakostas patients Paul Ehrlich percent pharmaceutical Phrenology physician pill placebo effect prescription problem Prozac psychiatrists psychic psychoanalysis psychological psychotherapy reserpine schizophrenia scientific scientists seemed serotonin shock sick side effects sion SSrIs story suffering sure symptoms talk tell theory therapists there’s thing thought tion told treat treatment trying turn Twarog unhappiness wasn’t wonder worry wortis wrote