The Loss of Sadness.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horwitz, Allan V.

Contributor:

Wakefield, Jerome C.

GIC Course Text Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychology.

Local Subjects:

Psychology.

Summary:

Depression has become the single most commonly treated mental disorder, amid claims that one out of ten Americans suffer from this disorder every year and 25% succumb at some point in their lives In The Loss of Sadness, Allan V Horwitz and: Jerome C Wakefield argue that, while depressive disorder certainly exists and can be a devastating condition warranting medical attention, the apparent epidemic in fact reflects the way the psychiatric profession has understood and reclassified normal human sadness as largely an abnormal experience.

Framed within an evolutionary account of human health and disease, The Loss of Sadness presents a fascinating dissection of depression as both a normal and disordered human emotion and a sweeping critique of current psychiatric diagnostic practices The result is a potent challenge to the diagnostic revolution that began almost thirty years ago in psychiatry and a provocative analysis of one of the most significant mental health issues today. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Concept of Depression 3

2 The Anatomy of Normal Sadness 27

3 Sadness With and Without Cause: Depression From Ancient Times Through the Nineteenth Century 53

4 Depression in the Twentieth Century 72

5 Depression in the DSM-IV 104

6 Importing Pathology Into the Community 123

7 The Surveillance of Sadness 144

8 The DSM and Biological Research About Depression 165

9 The Rise of Antidepressant Drug Treatments 179

10 The Failure of the Social Sciences to Distinguish Sadness From Depressive Disorder 194

11 Conclusion 212.

ISBN:

9780199921577