Manufacturing Depression

Author with professional and personal experience: Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg's musings on the intersection of science, politics, and ethics have graced the pages of The New Yorker, Wired, and Mother Jones. A longtime sufferer of depression, in 2007 he enrolled himself in a clinical trial for major depression (after his initial application for a minor depression trial was rejected). He wrote about his experience in a Harper's magazine piece, which received a tremendous response from readers..

"Am I happy enough?" This has been a pivotal question in Western society. Am I not happy enough because I am depressed? is a more recent version. Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured--not as an illness, but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way..

• A world of depressives: In the twenty years since their introduction, of people are taking them at a huge annual cost. Even more important, Greenberg argues, it has become common, if not mandatory, to think of our unhappiness as a disease that can, and should, be treated by medication. Manufacturing Depression tells the story of how we got to this peculiar point in our history. .