The Paula Gordon Show |
Conversation 1 Andrew Solomon tells Paula Gordon and Bill Russell the origins of his synthesis of what is known about depression and his hope to speak to fundamental questions about humans and our emotions. He outlines depression's complexity and approaches to alleviating it. 5:16 |
Conversation 2 Stressing reasons to be hopeful, Ms. Solomon explores what allows people to have rich, full lives in the face of depression. Self-help books, don't, he says. He distinguishes between alleviating the terrible effects of depression and retaining the full range of profound human emotions. He gives vivid examples of symptoms, then compares rates and depths of depression, across time and societies. Confident everyone has some degree of vulnerability to depression, Mr. Solomon describes conditions that act as triggers and the cyclical nature of symptoms. He suggests two ways of looking at depression and subscribes to both, then describes how this dichotomy becomes a political issue. |
Conversation 3 Tracing the history of how depression has been accepted or rejected in the Western world, Mr. Solomon explains how depression became something people hide. He speaks to the enormous strength required of people who have had to come to terms with their depression, convinced people can and often do find meaning in the illness. Instead of only medicalizing depression, Mr. Solomon urges us to approach it from as many different angles as possible. He gives examples. He shows how depression touches us all, then describes the chaotic nature of the disease. |
Conversation 4 Speaking as a reporter, Mr. Solomon compares how people deal with depression, assuring us that the experience of depression extends across all classes and all cultures. He describes the kinds of traumas that trigger the disease among all people. He thinks depression often triggers poverty rather than vice versa and expands. He describes what he believes is a puritanical sadism toward substance abusers in the American clinical system, especially toward those who are depressed. He gives a vivid example of the caution with which a person vulnerable to depression must proceed in life. |
Conversation 5 Mr. Solomon describes how he approached writing about both his own experience of depression and depression itself. He carefully approaches the subject of suicide and depression, alerting us to grim and surprising realities about the rate of suicide in America, urging us to get the subject out in the open. What do you do if you're really depressed? FIRST, Mr. Solomon says, seek HELP. He expands, urging people to Do Something and do it quickly. He offers a look at the emotional palette from which depression can arise, urging concerned friends and family to help depressed people to mitigate their loneliness. |
Conversation 6 Stressing the universality of depression, Mr. Solomon also points out how it differs from one culture to another. He recalls examples he found around the world, then tells how responsive depression is to a whole, broad range of approaches. Acknowledging how little we really know about depression, Mr. Solomon closes on how important hope is to us all. |
Acknowledgements We are deeply impressed by the gifts Andrew Solomon and his father have given to the world. Andrew's courage and his father's steadfast love are examples for us all, as is the willingness they both have demonstrated to shed light on shadowy subjects. We are grateful for the service Andrew has done us all and we rejoice that he continues to find the strength to triumph over lamb chops. |
Related Links: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a Touchstone Book, published by Simon & Schuster, New York.
The remarkably brave Iris Chang succumbed to her depression in 2004.
A very useful look at mental health and depression was published by Jen Reviews in 2018: A Blueprint When Feeling Blue: How A Mental Health Diagnosis Can Be Empowering.
It was former director of the National Institiute of Mental Health Dr. Tom Insel who first told us that depression is the most common debilitating disease in the developed world.
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