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Book Cover
Book
Author Ghaemi, S. Nassir, author

Title On depression : drugs, diagnosis, and despair in the modern world / Nassir Ghaemi
Published Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2013]
Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2013]
©2013
©2013

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 W'PONDS  616.8527 Gha/Odd  AVAILABLE
 W'BOOL  616.8527 Gha/Odd  AVAILABLE
Description 215 pages ; 23 cm
Contents Lives of quiet desperation -- The varieties of depressive experience -- Abnormal happiness -- The age of Prozac -- The unknown Hippocrates -- Postmodernism debunked -- Pharmageddon? -- Creating major depressive disorder -- The DSM wars -- Viktor Frankl : learning to suffer -- Rollo May and Elvin Semrad : I am, we are -- Leston havens : holding opposed ideas at once -- Paul Roazen : being honest about the past -- Karl Jaspers : keeping faith -- The banality of mental health -- Two o'clock in the morning
Summary "In a culture obsessed with youth, financial success, and achieving happiness, is it possible to live an authentic, meaningful life? Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorder Program at Tufts Medical Center, reflects on our society's current quest for happiness and rejection of any emotion resembling sadness. On Depression asks readers to consider the benefits of despair and the foibles of an unexamined life. Too often depression as disease is mistreated or not treated at all. Ghaemi warns against the "pretenders" who confuse our understanding of depression--both those who deny disease and those who use psychiatric diagnosis "pragmatically" or unscientifically. But experiencing sadness, even depression, can also have benefits. Ghaemi asserts that we can create a "narrative of ourselves such that we know and accept who we are," leading to a deeper, lasting level of contentment and a more satisfying personal and public life. Depression is complex, and we need guides to help us understand it, guides who comprehend it existentially as part of normal human experience and clinically as sometimes needing the right kind of treatment, including medications. Ghaemi discusses these guides in detail, thinkers like Viktor Frankl, Rollo May, Karl Jaspers, and Leston Havens, among others. On Depression combines examples from philosophy and the history of medicine with psychiatric principles informed by the author's clinical experience with people who struggle with mental illness. He has seen great achievements arise from great suffering and feels that understanding depression can provide important insights into happiness." -- Publisher's description
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (unnumbered page 197-207)and index
Notes Also issued online
Subject Antidepressants.
Depression, Mental -- Diagnosis.
Depression, Mental -- Treatment.
Depression, Mental.
Depressions.
Diagnostic errors.
Existentialism.
Psychiatry -- Philosophy.
Depression -- psychology.
Antidepressive Agents.
Depressive Disorder -- diagnosis.
Depressive Disorder -- drug therapy.
Diagnostic Errors.
Existentialism.
LC no. 2012036893
ISBN 142140933X (hardcover : alk. paper)
9781421409337 (hardcover : alk. paper)
(electronic)
(electronic)