Against Depression

Front Cover
Penguin, Jul 25, 2006 - Self-Help - 368 pages
"Deeply felt... [Kramer's] book is a polemic against a society that accepts depression as a fact of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine

A profound look at depression by the author of The New York Times Bestseller, Listening to Prozac

In his landmark bestseller Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer revolutionized the way we think about antidepressants and the culture in which they are so widely used. Now Kramer offers a frank and unflinching look at the condition those medications treat: depression. Definitively refuting our notions of "heroic melancholy," he walks readers through groundbreaking new research—studies that confirm depression's status as a devastating disease and suggest pathways toward resilience. Thought-provoking and enlightening, Against Depression provides a bold revision of our understanding of mood disorder and promises hope to the millions who suffer from it.
 

Selected pages

Contents

The Final Memoir
3
Return
12
What If
30
Ambivalence
42
Altogether
48
Charm
63
More Charm
77
Eros
85
Extent
158
Convergence
172
Resilience
189
Here and Now
199
What It Will Be
209
The End of Melancholy
211
Art
232
The Natural
244

Obvious Confusion Three Vignettes
95
What It Is
113
Altogether Again
115
Getting There
124
Magnitude
150
Alienation
261
After Depression
277
Notes
293
Index
339
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Peter D. Kramer is the author of eight books, including Ordinarily Well, Against Depression, the novels Spectacular Happiness and Death of the Great Man, and the national and international bestseller Listening to Prozac. His essays, op-eds, and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Dr. Kramer hosted the public radio program The Infinite Mind and has appeared on the major broadcast news and talk shows, including Today, Good Morning America, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and Fresh Air. For forty years, Dr. Kramer practiced psychiatry in Providence, Rhode Island, where he is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. He now writes full time.
 
Visit Dr. Kramer on the web: http://www.peterdkramer.com .

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