El imperio de la depresión

Depression has colonized the world. Today, more than 300 million of us have been diagnosed with it at some point in our lives. But 150 years ago depression was a state of mind, not a disease. Does this mean that before people were not sick, but only sad? Of course not. Mental illness is a complicated thing, part biological and part social, and its definition varies across time and space. But in the mid-twentieth century, as European empires crumbled, new Western medical models and treatments spread throughout the world. As they did, depression began to displace earlier ideas such as "melancholia," the Japanese "utsusho," or the Punjabi "shrinking heart" syndrome. In "The Empire of Depression" Jonathan Sadowsky tells this global story, describing the pioneering work of psychiatrists and pharmacists and the intimate suffering of their patients. Showing the continuity of human malaise through time and space, it exposes how intense mental anguish has been experienced by different cultures, and how they have tried to alleviate it, to reach a clear conclusion: that the devastating effects of depression are real. . Some treatments can reduce suffering, but there is still no permanent cure. Throughout the history of depression there has been a wide variety of zealous advocates of certain approaches, but history shows that there is no single way to beat depression that works for everyone. Like successful psychotherapy, history can free us from the negative tendencies of our past.