5/21/2023 0 Comments Lost connections johann“Loneliness,” he writes, “hovers over our culture today like a thick smog.” Meaningful contact is something we are innately designed to crave – it’s in our very DNA – but our socio-economic system is predicated on individualism. The notion that depression occurs because of some intrinsic flaw divorced from social context – a biological problem requiring a biomedical solution – doesn't seem to hold true in most cases.įar from being a defect, Hari argues that depression is actually a rational and self-preservatory response to the fragmentation of community life in the contemporary world. He cites research indicating that, in many cases of so-called "endogenous" depression, the depressed person had suffered some kind of serious emotional distress in the year before the onset of their depression. In Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions, Hari interrogates this dubious taxonomy. By contrast, “reactive” depression was caused by external events such as bereavement, trauma or some other adversity. Received wisdom held that “endogenous” depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain antidepressants were supposed to solve the problem by restoring the brain’s natural balance. Like many people suffering from depression, Johann Hari spent many years taking the antidepressant drug Seroxat, a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, or SSRI.
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