Manufacturing Depression

Book excerpt: According to the Office of National Statistics, depression occurs in 1 in 10 adults in Britain at any one time. But what constitutes depression? And what role have the pharmaceutical companies played in creating an idea of depression that turns human beings into neurochemical machines? Where does that leave the human spirit? Do we ask and expect too much of science, rather than accepting that there are important matters about which we may always be unsure? Could this lack of certainty be at the heart of what it means to be human? In his fascinating account of the close relationship between psychiatric diagnosis and the pharmaceutical industries, Gary Greenberg uses his personal experience over a two-year exposure to drug testing and different therapies for depression, backed up by twenty years of professional practice as a psychotherapist, to answer these questions and unravel the 'Secret History of a Modern Disease'.