Against Depression by Peter D. Kramer | eBook

Author Peter Kramer wants to give depression a bad name. The author of Listening to Prozac thinks that our culture has suffered from a centuries-long romance with sadness. Refuting claims that depression is a source of soulfulness and creativity, he identifies it as a debilitating disease that plagues millions of Americans. More important, he describes the latest scientific findings about depression and explains their implications for treating this grim malady.

Natalie Angier

Kramer presents a sustained case that depression, far from enhancing cognitive or emotional powers, essentially pokes holes in the brain, killing neurons and causing key regions of the prefrontal cortex -- the advanced part of the brain, located just behind the forehead -- to shrink measurably in size. He lucidly explains a wealth of recent research on the disease, citing work in genetics, biochemistry, brain imaging, the biology of stress, studies of identical twins. He compares the brain damage from depression with that caused by strokes. As a result of diminished blood flow to the brain, he says, many elderly stroke patients suffer crippling depressions.

David Brown

In his new book, Peter D. Kramer examines depression with a cool, intelligent and sympathetic eye. The author of the wildly popular Listening to Prozac , he is a practicing psychiatrist who sees depression and its human cost nearly every working day. He asks two interesting questions: If we could eradicate depression, would we? And if we did, would we lose anything of value?
— The Washingon Post

Publishers Weekly

What is depression really, and how does society define it? Kramer, a famed psychiatrist and author of the 1993 bestseller Listening to Prozac, says he has written "an insistent argument that depression is a disease, one we would do well to oppose wholeheartedly." In making his argument, Kramer examines the cultural roots of notions about depression and underscores the gap between what we know scientifically and what we feel about the illness. Kramer traces depression from Hippocrates through the Renaissance and Romantic "cult of melancholy" to advances in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy, and at last to the disease we now know it to be. Kramer's curiosity drives the book forward as he ponders why we value artwork and literature built on despair: "certain of our aesthetic and intellectual preferences have been set by those who suffer... deeply." The book maintains the perfect balance between science and human interest, as the author details both psychiatric studies and personal experience. A comparison of the biochemical workings of depression with the physical and observable symptoms serves as an intellectual trip for readers and provides a thorough exploration of what Kramer dubs "the most devastating disease known to humankind." The book is rich with questions that engage the reader in an active dialogue: Why is society captive to depression's charm? And will this infatuation change with the emergence of more evidence regarding depression's severely disabling effects? Kramer leaves off with these questions to ponder. Resolute but not preachy, this book is an important addition to the growing public health campaign against depression. As for how we should definedepression-perhaps it's best understood by its opposite: "A resilient mind, sustained by a resilient brain and body."
Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In his best-selling Listening to Prozac, psychiatrist Kramer (Brown Univ.) explored the social implications of psychotropic personality change; he did not address the actual effects of these drugs on the severely depressed, yet he was constantly asked, "What if van Gogh (or, in Denmark, Kierkegaard) had been given antidepressants?"-the suggestion being that depression, or the depressive personality, is important to the production of works of genius. This led to the present book, which examines the question, "If we could eradicate depression so that no human being ever suffered it again, would we?" His answer is a resounding yes; depression is a major cause of distress with no redeeming value. In the process, he argues that the idea of "heroic melancholy" is simply a way our culture has developed to cope with a disorder that we can't cure-analogous to the way that tuberculars were once thought to be especially sensitive and creative. Along the way, Kramer offers an excellent summary of current biochemical theories of depression. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. —Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A heartfelt argument that depression is not, as many would have it, a source of heroic melancholy and artistic genius, but, rather, a pathological condition that should, if possible, be eradicated. When Kramer (Clinical Psychiatry/Brown Univ.) made public appearances after publication of his best-selling Listening to Prozac (1993), audiences persistently challenged him with questions like, "What if Prozac had been available in van Gogh's time?" The assumption that suffering from mental illness is a prerequisite to genius and that humanity would be the poorer if depression were conquered is anathema to Kramer. Instead, he asserts, it is "the most devastating disease known to humankind," and to back up his claim he cites some astonishing statistics: $40 billion in lost productivity in the United States, for example, or 3 percent of GDP. In a wide-ranging essay that draws on his own life and on his years of treating patients, he explores the gap between common perceptions of depression and the scientific understanding of it. In the first of three parts here, "What It Is to Us," he looks at the charm of depression and its erotic power, at the way people are drawn to such precursors of depression as moodiness, passivity and vulnerability. In "What It Is," he reviews research in biological psychiatry and neuroscience that links depression to frank abnormalities in the nervous system, including problems in stress responses, repair of cells in critical brain regions, and small or malfunctioning hippocampus glands. Finally, in "What It Will Be," Kramer envisions a world without depression and lists benefits of its eradication. Without depression to fear, he says, we would be free to be quirky andneurotic, to take risks more openly and to love more generously-and we'd still have art and artists. While not predicting that depression will be eliminated anytime soon, Kramer brings hope to those afflicted by it. A clear, valuable exposition of the progress researchers are making in understanding an all-too-common disease. Author tour

From the Publisher

"An eloquent, absorbing book." —The New York Times Book Review

"Deeply felt... [Kramer's] book is a polemic against a society that accepts depression as a fact of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine

"Kramer makes an eloquent case for considering depression a disease... Captivating, convincing and thorough." —San Francisco Chronicle

In Against Depression, Peter Kramer opens our eyes once again to a fresh, important and humane understanding of the human condition. His bold rethinking of the condition we call 'depression' gives us a clear-eyed scenario for freedom from the grip of this soul-searing disorder." —Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

"There is nothing romantic in the suffering of depression. Kramer shows us the horrific reality of the illness, dispelling myths that pervade popular culture. This book should usher in an era when the disordered chemistry of the brain is viewed with the same concern and care that mark the treatment of any malady." —Jerome Groopman, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

"Here one of our most thoughtful psychiatrists attends a wide-spread psychological malady—the bouts of melancholy that afflict so many individuals, laying them low in mind and spirit. This book offers much critical wisdom, even as it is written with a grace and sensitivity that will endear its words to the reader." —Robert Coles, Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities, Harvard Medical School

"Our treasured sense of self is often challenged by neuroscience—how do you wedge 'Self' in among neurons and synapses and neurotransmitters? No one has written about these issues in a more sensitive, thought-provoking and accessible way, and has touched more people in the process, than Peter Kramer." —Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University

Against Depression

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Against Depression

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