But this book does not offer solutions, it offers political policies. Modern western culture does prioritise consumerism, and does break down communities, and does make people feel like their work is meaningless, and does push pills on people who don’t need them, etc. The solutions may all be copy/pasted political agendas, but a lot of the issues it raises are pertinent. Throw in some dated snipes at Donald Trump and Brexit, and you’ve got this book. Mixed in are some old cliches about accepting childhood trauma and reconnecting with nature, as well as some political porn about the righteous struggles of various minorities throughout the 20th century. What are the solutions? In no particular order feminism, universal basic income, democratised workplaces, and prioritising the community above the individual. What are the causes of depression according to this book? Capitalism and oppression (by the usual suspects against the usual suspects).

However, it became clear the more I got through it that this book is really just using depression as a front to justify a political angle.

This book started off with an interesting premise. He learned there is scientific evidence for nine different causes of depression and anxiety-and that this knowledge leads to a very different set of solutions: ones that offer real hope. So, as an adult, he went on a forty-thousand-mile journey across the world to interview the leading experts about what causes depression and anxiety, and what solves them. Some of the solutions his doctor offered had given him some relief-but he remained in deep pain. When he was a teenager, he had gone to his doctor and explained that he felt like pain was leaking out of him, and he couldn't control it or understand it. He had a very personal reason to ask this question. He was thirty-nine years old, and almost every year he had been alive, depression and anxiety had increased in Britain and across the Western world. There was a mystery haunting award-winning investigative journalist Johann Hari. The New York Times bestseller from the author of Chasing the Scream, offering a radical new way of thinking about depression and anxiety.

Lost connections johann hari