Synopses & Reviews
Am I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinets—doctors now write 120 million prescriptions annually, at a cost of more than 10 billion dollars. At the same time, depression rates have skyrocketed; twenty percent of Americans are now expected to suffer from it during their lives. Doctors, and drug companies, claim that this convergence is a public health triumph: the recognition and treatment of an under-diagnosed illness. Gary Greenberg, a practicing therapist and longtime depressive, raises a more disturbing possibility: that the disease has been manufactured to suit (and sell) the cure.
Greenberg draws on sources ranging from the Bible to current medical journals to show how the idea that unhappiness is an illness has been packaged and sold by brilliant scientists and shrewd marketing experts—and why it has been so successful. Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposé—including a vivid chronicle of his participation in a clinical antidepressant trial—Manufacturing Depression is an incisive look at an epidemic that has changed the way we have come to think of ourselves.
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
"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
"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
“[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
“[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. All he 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
Gary Greenberg’s fascinating argument about the uniquely American pursuit of anti-depression rather than happiness.
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.