Synopses & Reviews
am i happy enough? This has been a pivotal question since America's inception. Am I not happy enough because I am depressed? is a more recent version. In the past twenty years, as antidepressants have become staples of our medicine chests -- upward of thirty million Americans are taking them at an annual cost of more than ten billion dollars -- more people have begun to ask themselves if their unhappiness is a disease that can, and should, be treated by medication.
Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposé, Manufacturing Depression reveals how this question has come to dominate our understanding of our suffering. Author Gary Greenberg draws on sources ranging from the Old Testament to current medical journals and scholarship to his twenty-five years as a psychotherapist and his own experience as a depression patient to show how the idea that depression is a widespread chronic disease has been packaged by brilliant scientists, doctors, and marketing experts -- and why it is has become wildly successful in the marketplace of ideas.
Rather than asking whether or not depression is a disease, or whether or not we should take drugs to ease our pain, Greenberg asks what we gain and lose by taking this approach, and who benefits when we do. Manufacturing Depression allows readers to think of depression not just as an illness, but as a story about our suffering, its source, and its relief. A remarkably intelligent, witty, and deeply perceptive writer and professional observer, Greenberg has insights and perspective that are bound to spark much debate, and challenge many -- experts and casual readers alike -- to view depression in a wholly new light.
Review
"Manufacturing Depression is required reading for anyone taking, prescribing, advertising, or regulating antidepressants. But more than that, it is food for thought, indispensable in the debate on just how overmedicated and hyper-pathologized we are becoming as a society." -- Julie Holland, M.D., author of Weekends at Bellevue
Review
"What a felicitous coincidence -- to be...designed for happiness in a land dedicated to its pursuit! In these words, Gary Greenberg illustrates our dilemmas, using examples from the Book of Job to our recent financial crises, and reveals with uncommon eloquence the uncomfortable consequences of this pursuit. Readers beware -- you have an unsettling journey ahead through an alarming underworld but your guide is dependable." -- David Healy, M.D., author of Mania and Let Them Eat Prozac
Review
“[A] blistering, rambling and entertaining attack on the biomedical disease model of depression….[a] lyrical history…[Manufacturing Depression] is more than a dizzying, dazzling critique of the biomedical disease model of depression. It is probably the most thoughtful book on depression ever written for a lay audence.” —Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D., Psychology Today
Review
"An irreverent and entertaining but ultimately devastating account of how and why ordinary unhappiness and life problems have been redefined as the omnipresent disease of depression. Manufacturing Depression is a classic work of American skepticism and common sense. Somewhere Walker Percy and Mark Twain are smiling." -- Charles Barber, author of Comfortably Numb
Review
“[A] lucid and unusually revealing book…[depression issues] are discussed both implicitly and explicitly with shrewd tact by Greenberg…what distinguishes Manufacturing Depression is that Greenberg never needs to take the upper hand….a useful history of psychiatric diagnoses of depression interwoven with a riveting account of his own depression and his participation in an antidepressant drug trial…an unusually amusing, moving and spirited account.” —Adam Phillips, The Nation
Review
"Manufacturing Depression is a brilliant, provocative, delightfully idiosyncratic—and engagingly readable!—personal and intellectual odyssey through twentieth-century psychiatry's expansive love affair with depression. Anyone interested in depression will be challenged to think harder about what it all means for the kind of people we want to be." —Jerome C. Wakefield, PhD, DSW, coauthor of The Loss of Sadness
Review
“[Manufacturing Depression] is thoughtful and well written…full of fascinating stories...Greenberg's greatest contribution, though, is insisting on few certainties, and in offering himself to us…With Greenberg, you are free to call your sorrow a disease, or not, to take drugs or not—to see a therapist, or not. Allhe asks is that you ‘don't settle for being sick in the head...you can tell your own story about your discontents’.” —Liz Else, New Scientist
Review
“Greenberg[‘s] bouts of deep depressions [are] smartly conveyed here, including [his] participation in a clinical trial for an antidepressant…the author engages in extended, illuminating discussions of a host of therapeutic techniques, the confounding power of the placebo effect, the evolution of psychopharmacology and the ways in which expectations shape response. A humanistic, witty exploration of the human response to depression.” —Kirkus
Review
“A lucid and revealing book…an unusually amusing, moving, and spirited account.” —Adam Phillips, The Nation
Review
“[Greenberg] is an unusually eloquent writer, and his book offers a grand tour of the history of modern medicine, as well as an up-close look at contemporary practices." —Louis Menand, The New Yorker
Review
“A dizzying, dazzling critique. It is probably the most thoughtful book on depression ever written." —Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D., Psychology Today
Review
“Manufacturing Depression is full of fascinating stories...Greenberg's greatest contribution, though, is insisting on few certainties, and in offering himself to us." —Liz Else, New Scientist
Review
“In a medicalized world of specious concepts where false hope has taken the form of a diagnosis and a pill, the only way to challenge current thinking is with a sledgehammer, or a copy of Manufacturing Depression. And best of all, this may be the funniest book on depression ever.” —Errol Morris, Academy Award-winning director of The Fog of War
Review
“Greenberg elegantly dissects the medical-research-pharmaceutical complex….A splendid, witty analysis of how we came to give up the stories of our lives in favor of analyzing the alphabet of which the stories are made. An essential read for all invested in medicine and social science.” —Library Journal, starred review
Synopsis
• 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 since America’s inception. 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 nation of depressives: In the twenty years since their introduction, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine chests—upwards of 30 million Americans are taking them at an annual cost of more than $10 billion. 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. .
About the Author
Gary Greenberg is a practicing psychotherapist in Connecticut and author of The Noble Lie. He has written about the intersection of science, politics, and ethics for many publications, including Harper's, the New Yorker, Wired, Discover, Rolling Stone, and Mother Jones, where he's a contributing writer.