Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions, by Johann Hari

Swiss-British journalist Johann Hari goes on a remarkable journey to discover the causes for his long term depression. 

At the age of eighteen Johann Hari was prescribed antidepressants and spent the next thirteen years on them. As a teenager he often found himself breaking down and crying for no good reason. Life was miserable. Then he had an epiphany of sorts: the problem simply must be an imbalance with the  chemicals in his brain. All he needed to do was correct the imbalance with drugs. Simple. At first the drugs worked, then after a time their effectiveness would wane. No problem. Simply get higher doses. There were side effects, however. Hari put on a lot of weight, but he figured to be depression free was worth it. Or was it?

Lost Connections is Hari’s attempt to look for the reasons why there is such an epidemic of depression and anxiety in Western societies. The early chapters of the book look at the science behind the effectiveness of antidepressants and finds, amazingly, that their efficacy is actually marginal. They act more as a placebo. Yet doctors unthinkingly keep prescribing them.

The book then outlines in individual chapters seven reasons why people develop depression and anxiety (the science shows the two are closely linked):

1. We work in boring, degrading jobs and are disconnected from meaningful work.

2. We are disconnected from other people and have no community.

3. Living in a commercial culture, we don’t pursue meaningful values.

4. Some of us experience a childhood trauma that we don’t address.

5. Being cogs in a commercial machine, we have all lost status and dignity.

6. We are disconnected from nature.

7. We can’t be hopeful and secure in our future due to the precarious nature of our working lives.

There is another chapter after these seven which addresses how our genes and changes in the brain can cause depression and anxiety as well, but Hari finds that even if you have a disposition towards depression, the seven factors listed above will greatly exacerbate it.

The rest of the book looks at ways of gaining re-connection to meaningful work, values, nature and other people. The most compelling passages describe Hari working with a protest group in a dingy housing project in Kotti, Berlin. Rents were going through the roof and so the residents, a disparate group of people, came together and found strength to help each other and make positive change. Hari found that concentrating on helping others, and belonging to a group, greatly helped as an effective antidepressant:

“But what I was being taught is - if you want to stop being depressed, don't be you. Don't be yourself. Don't fixate on how you're worth it. It's thinking about you, you, you that's helped to make you feel so lousy. Don't be you. Be us. Be we. Be part of the group. Make the group worth it. The real path to happiness, they were telling me, comes from dismantling our ego walls - from letting yourself flow into other people's stories and letting their stories flow into yours; from pooling your identity and, from realising that you were never you - alone, heroic sad, - all along.”

Meditation is another tool which is investigated as a way of combating depression and is found to be a powerful way to build empathy with others, and hence reconnection to the world.

Lost Connections mixes a personal narrative of suffering and trauma with journalistic research and investigation. If you are depressed or anxious, this book perhaps won’t address all your problems or offer an instant cure, but it will give hope that there is a way out. The basic take-away it that our society is making us very sick, focusing too much on status, money and individual achievement, leaving us disconnected from each other and ourselves.

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions, by Johann Hari. Published by Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9781408878699  RRP: $27.99