[simongray]

I recently read the book "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari which covers this issue. In fact, it's a really a book about some deeper problems of Western society (where depression, anxiety, etc. has been on the rise for a long time), so the pharmaceutical pill-pushing and the fairly debunked "chemical imbalance" explanation of depression really just sets the backdrop of the story. He emphasizes - like you mention - social changes in modern Western societies as major causes of depression.

I really recommend the book. If you're not convinced or just want an audio version, then I recommend the episode of the Ezra Klein Show podcast where Johann Hari is a guest - that's what convinced me to read the book.

[jdietrich]

I am obliged to point out that Johann Hari has a distinctly chequered reputation. He lost his job as a columnist at The Independent in 2011 due to multiple substantiated allegations of plagiarism; it later transpired that he had vandalised the Wikipedia articles of journalists who had criticised his conduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#2011_scandals

His book Lost Connections has been strongly criticised for misrepresenting the mainstream scientific position, cherry-picking data and making unreferenced and unsupported claims.

https://anotherangrywoman.com/2018/01/22/thinking-critically...

[ridgeguy]

Thanks for your post, I was not aware of the controversy around Hari.

That said, I found his book "Chasing the Scream: the first and last days of the war on drugs" [1] an informative resource that in some places touches on this thread's topic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream

[hellofunk]

I’m curious, if depression doesn’t have some basis in chemical roots, then why is it often hereditary? Like other forms of mental illness which are chemical and hereditary, depression also exhibits these characteristics.

[jdietrich]

It's entirely plausible that some people have hereditary character traits that make them less resilient to stress. They're not necessarily depressed because of their genes, but their genes make them more vulnerable to depression.

We observe a similar phenomenon with diseases like type 2 diabetes. People of south Asian origin have significantly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even after controlling for diet and lifestyle factors. We have identified a cluster of genes that don't directly cause diabetes, but seem to increase the risk of developing the disease. You aren't doomed to develop diabetes if you have these genes, but you do need to be more careful about your diet and lifestyle.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.921

[simongray]

The current mainstream view is that depression is partly physical, so you're not wrong.

(edited for clarity) Some say that depression is a chemical imbalance, but this is not a mainstream view any longer (I think, although it's often mentioned in comments on the Internet), although treatment is still very much based on chemicals like SSRI drugs, which have very little proven effect, require constant upping of dosages to gain the small effect they provide, and also having several undesirable side-effects.

[ianai]

I did not equate the two.

[simongray]

I did not say you did, sorry if it seemed that way, but others further up this tread are indeed saying that.