Project Description
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. Warnings that depressive disorder is a leading cause of worldwide disability have been accompanied by a massive upsurge in the consumption of antidepressant medication, widespread screening for depression in clinics and schools, and a push to diagnose depression early on the basis of just a few symptoms in order to prevent more severe conditions from developing.
Allan Horwitz is a leading voice calling for rethinking the “depression epidemic.” Although his position is not one of blanket skepticism about the reality of depression as a serious illness with biological roots, he points out major flaws in medicine’s current conception of depression and provides a fascinating historical, sociological and medical analysis of depression in the world today.
Dr. Horwitz is the author of several publications, including The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder, and co-directs the Rutgers Postdoctoral Program in Mental Health. He has been elected Chair of the Mental Health Section of the American Sociological Association and the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
