Book Review: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At the conclusion of this powerful and insightful book, writer Johann Hari states "depression is to a significant degree a collective problem caused by something that's gone wrong in our culture," and in the previous 259 pages he makes a compelling case for why this is so. The argument will be of interest to any of the very large and growing number of people who are dealing with depression and anxiety, either in the our lives or in the case of friends and loved ones. Hari spends the first part of the book critically examining current medical and cultural thought on the sources of depression and its treatment, most of which focuses on allegedly "chemical" imbalances in the brain and other biological issues that are typically reduced to the status of an individual problem. In each of these introductory chapters he consults a wide range of experts from around the globe and cites numerous scientific studies that call these perspectives into serious question, and he notes along the way the pernicious influence of a pharmaceutical industry that has profited enormously from the now-conventional view. Aided by his experts, Hari formulates the broad theme that many of the sources of depression and anxiety stem from social problems - alienated labor and meaningless work, junk values promoted in capitalist societies that emphasize a focus on the self and on consumerism as the path to happiness, repressed childhood trauma, alienation from nature, modern systems of social hierarchy that degrade people and relegate them to a status in which dignity and respect are scarce, and a loss of much-needed community ties. As Hari puts it, the cumulative impact of these "lost connections" has had a devastating impact on the health and well-being of individuals, resulting in depression and anxiety that cannot be addressed by drugs. When the diagnosis is wrong, the treatment will be problematic at best. In the second half of the book, Hari points to another group of experts and numerous studies and techniques illustrating how efforts to re-establish connectedness has yielded enormous benefits in reducing the suffering by directly addressing the social sources of depression. Hari's argument is challenging, but the evidence he presents should be taken very seriously by anyone who honestly cares about the problem of depression. Social problems don't have individual (or pharmaceutical) solutions, and to address the problems generated by the social order of late capitalism we need to work together to effect major social changes. Doing so will benefit us all.

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