Manufacturing Depression
The Secret History of a Modern Disease
Gary Greenberg
- 448 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Manufacturing Depression
The Secret History of a Modern Disease
Gary Greenberg
About This Book
Am I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinetsâdoctors 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 expertsâand why it has been so successful. Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposĂ©âincluding a vivid chronicle of his participation in a clinical antidepressant trialâ Manufacturing Depression is an incisive look at an epidemic that has changed the way we have come to think of ourselves.