Against Depression

  Peter Kramer

Certification Test: $90   Book & Test: $102

9 CEs

     A decade ago, with his breakaway bestseller, Listening to Prozac, Peter Kramer revolutionized the way we think about antidepressants and the culture in which they are so widely used. Now he returns with a profound and original look at the condition those medications treat: Depression. He asks: If we could eradicate depression, so that no human being ever suffered it again, would we?

     Against Depression is a groundbreaking assessment of the science of mood disorder -- a field that is taken leaps forward in the past decade. Walking the reader through the full range of new research, Kramer shows how depression endangers nerve cells, disrupts brain functioning, damages the heart and blood vessels, alters personal perspective and judgment, and interferes with parenting and family life. As the evidence mounts, there is no denying the obvious -- that depression now qualifies fully as a disease, one of the most devastating known to humankind. And yet, says Kramer, we do not approach depression as a disease, not in our daily thinking.

     Depression, linked in our culture to a long tradition of “heroic melancholy” is often understood as ennobling -- a source of creativity, integrity, insight, and even sensuality. Tracing these beliefs from Aristotle to the Romantics to Picasso, and to present-day memoirs of mood disorder, Kramer suggests that the pervasiveness of the illness has distorted our impression of what it is to be human. He shows how a head-on look at depression as we now know it will change our sense of self, our tastes in art and in love, and our account of what it is to live a good life.

     Frank and unflinching, Against Depression is a deeply felt, deeply moving book, grounded in time spent with the depressed. As his argument unfolds, Kramer becomes a crusader, the author of a compassionate polemic that is fiercely against depression and the devastation it causes. Listening to Prozac stimulated discussions that swept the nation and the world.  Against Depression is equally original, and equally timely. Thought- provoking, challenging, enlightening, it will bring about a bold revision of our understanding of mood disorder and give hope to the millions who suffer from it.

9 CE Hours of credit.
Certification Test: $90
Book & Test: $102.95

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