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A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It - Paperback | Diverse Reads

A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It

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A fascinating, “rich, and generous” (Financial Times) look at the treatment of depression by an award-winning science writer that blends popular science, narrative history, and memoir.

Is depression a persistent low mood, or is it a range of symptoms? Can it be expressed through a single diagnosis, or does depression actually refer to a diversity of mental disorders? Is there, or will there ever be, a cure? In seeking the answers to these questions, Riley finds a rich history of ideas and treatments—and takes the reader on a gripping narrative journey, packed with fascinating stories like the junior doctor who discovered that some of the first antidepressants had a deadly reaction with cheese.

“Interweaving memoir, case histories, and accounts of new therapies, Riley anatomizes what is still a fairly young science, and a troubled one” (The New Yorker). Reporting on the field of global mental health from its colonial past to the present day, Riley highlights a range of scalable therapies, including how a group of grandmothers stands on the frontline of a mental health revolution.

Hopeful, fascinating, and profound, A Cure for Darkness is “recommended reading for anyone with even a peripheral interest in depression” (Washington Examiner).

ISBN-13: 9781501198786

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Scribner

Publication Date: 03-01-2022

Pages: 464

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.38(h) x 1.20(d)

Alex Riley is an award-winning science writer living in Bristol, UK. His work has been published by Aeon Magazine, the BBC, The Guardian, PBS’s NOVA Next, and New Scientist, among others. In 2019, he received a best feature award from the Association of British Science Writers for his reporting on The Friendship Bench, a project that provides mental healthcare to low-income communities in Zimbabwe and has been adopted in countries around the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Cutting Steps into the Mountain

The Anatomists 17

Über Coca 33

"Psychiatry's Linnaeus" 42

A Melancholic Humor 47

Instruments of Cure 54

The Talking Cure 63

Love and Hate 74

A First Sketch 82

Part 2 "The Biological Approach Seems to Be Working"

Fighting Fire with Fire 95

Unfixing Thoughts 100

"The Brain Has Ceased to Be Sacred" 107

The Most Powerful Reaction 124

Legacy 137

Cerletti's Monster 144

The Psychic Energizers 154

The Shoes That Prozac Would Fill 165

G22355 173

The Mysterious Case of the Lethal Headaches 185

Part 3 Getting Therapy

In Your Dreams, Freud 205

More Than One Psychotherapy 215

"If Mom Ain't Happy Ain't Nobody Happy" 227

"Happier Than We Europeans" 237

Kufungisisa 245

Care by the Community 257

"I Live and Breathe Peer" 266

Part 4 The Universe Within

It Feels Like Spring 277

Rebirth 285

The Epitome of Hopelessness 297

Mind on Fire 301

"For Life" 312

The Beginning 326

Surfing in the Brain Scanner 329

"Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out" 333

Building a New System 341

Seeing with Eyes Shut 349

Epilogue: New Life 359

Notes 367

Selected Bibliography 433

Acknowledgments 437

Index 439