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Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope Hardcover – Jan. 23 2018
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The New York Times bestseller from the author of Chasing the Scream, offering a radical new way of thinking about depression and anxiety.
There was a mystery haunting award-winning investigative journalist Johann Hari. 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. Why?
He had a very personal reason to ask this question. 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. Some of the solutions his doctor offered had given him some relief―but he remained in deep pain.
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. 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.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBloomsbury USA
- Publication dateJan. 23 2018
- Dimensions16.76 x 3.18 x 24.26 cm
- ISBN-10163286830X
- ISBN-13978-1632868305
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Product description
Review
"Lost Connections offers a wonderful and incisive analysis of the depression and alienation that are haunting American society." - Hillary Rodham Clinton
"If you have ever been down, or felt lost, this amazing book will change your life. Do yourself a favour--read it now." - Elton John
"Wise, probing, and deeply generous Hari has produced a book packed with explosive revelations about our epidemic of despair . . . I am utterly convinced that the more people read this book, the better off the world will be." - Naomi Klein
"This is a bold and inspiring book that will help far more than just those who suffer from depression. As Hari shows, we all have within us the potential to live in ways that are healthier and wiser." - Arianna Huffington
"Through a breath-taking journey across the world, Johann Hari exposes us to extraordinary people and concepts that will change the way we see depression forever. It is a brave, moving, brilliant, simple and earth-shattering book that must be read by everyone and anyone who is longing for a life of meaning and connection." - Eve Ensler, author of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES
"This is one of those extraordinary books that you want all your friends to read immediately--because the shift in world-view is so compelling and dramatic that you wonder how you’ll be able to have conversations with them otherwise." - Brian Eno
"One of the world's most important and most enlightening thinkers and social critics." - Glenn Greenwald, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
"Johann Hari is again getting people to think differently about our mood, our minds and our drug use, and that is something we need a lot more of." - Bill Maher
"Depression and anxiety are the maladies of our time, but not for the reasons you think . . . An important diagnosis from one of the ablest journalists writing in the English language today." - Thomas Frank, author of WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS
"Eye-opening, highly detailed . . . The book is part personal odyssey, in which Hari gets to grips with the flaws in his own treatment, and part scholarly reflection, where he sifts through the varying perspectives of scientists, psychologists and people with depression . . . Hari is clear about the difficulties of the task ahead and, in offering new ways of thinking, presents not surefire solutions but, he says, 'an alternative direction of travel' . . . A compassionate, common-sense approach to depression and anxiety . . . His book brings with it an urgency and rigour that will, with luck, encourage the authorities to sit up and take note." - Guardian, "Book of the Day, 17 January 2018"
"A bold call for a complete re-evaluation of what is causing the western epidemic of mental illness." - Sunday Times
"Brilliant." - Mail on Sunday
"This book has a great deal to offer. Lost Connections isn't as much about science and mental health as it is about society, and the stories we tell around mental illness . . . This book's value lies in its attempt to change the stories we tell about the depressed and anxious, and perhaps help some of those suffering change how they think about themselves." - Independent
"You might think Lost Connections is a self-help title but in reality it's a book that aims to change society, not individuals . . . Lost Connections is an important and controversial book because it asks questions about the biggest problems we have in the world." - Attitude Magazine
"Thought-provoking . . . His comprehensible and penetrating study features extensive research and interviews with everyone from leading scientists and medics to members of the Amish community. This heartening book reveals the mutual social benefits of reconnecting with others and helping them to help yourself." *****- Western Mail
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Bloomsbury USA (Jan. 23 2018)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 163286830X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1632868305
- Item weight : 612 g
- Dimensions : 16.76 x 3.18 x 24.26 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in Journalist Biographies (Books)
- #21 in Depression (Books)
- #24 in Mood Disorders (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Johann Hari is the New York Times best-selling author of 'Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs', and one of the top-rated TED talkers of all time.
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even when i was 18 and had depression i knew it was a bit genetic but mostly trauma etc...no doctors deny this. the thing is that depression can be progressive...so it has to be treated and medication is one of many ways.
The only question is not about endogenous depression but - ( we know it's very small percent which is genetic and it's triggered )
the question is some people may have chemicals not working AFTER too much trauma- so that it then becomes a chemical problem as brain chemistry may not be able to reboot itself without medication.
I would have liked it had he actually interviewed psychiatrists who work in mood disorders wards...
who see the suffering on a daily basis.
He selectively interviewed people to support his theory on a subject he didn't thoroughly understand ( the neuroscience ) and so this is not good journalism.
but he had some good ideas that can help many people and food for thought..
Medication worked very well for me. i don't believe that it's big pharma out to make money - we need the drugs to adapt to a sick society..or to handle the pain, no different than someone needs meds for a broken leg.
No doctor says medication is the only solution, it is to help in addition to the rest of the things he says can help which were great suggestions.
I guess the only thing I might add: neurodivergent folks can easily be anxious and depressed just by trying to live in the world not made for them. I’d add that to the book and also, talk more about anxiety and depression in relation to being Black and/or LGBTQ and/or other oppressed groups in our societies.
I wish the atheist author had done more research on the connection to the divine and its role in the subject.
A must read for anyone seeking to understand the complicated world of depression and anxiety.
If you've suffered depression/anxiety for a long time, you kind of have it managed but are still not 100%, give this book a listen (or read). It will reassure you that you are not alone in your struggle, and have you look inward at the ways in which you might still need nurturing. Many solutions are obvious, but some less so. Absolutely refreshing work.
Top reviews from other countries

The writing style caused the initial irritation. It’s like a TED talk extended to 10 hours. Endless formulaic personal stories that take a chapter to make a single point better suited to a sentence. And oh-so patronising, written in that dumbed down journalistic way that I find intensely insulting.
As I read more, it was the fraudulent self-congratulatory content that caused my increasing anger. That the author has the gall to claim he discovered 9 causes of depression (which are a rehash of bog standard theory known for decades) suggests his delusion and narcissism are much bigger issues than his depression. It’s no wonder then that he is a proven plagiarist. The real disgrace is the number of celebrity endorsements.
On a personal note, I disagree with his conclusions about blaming ‘society’. Take individual accountability and stop playing the victim.
My advice? Read the chapter headings on the free kindle sample as they tell you his whole message. Then look up the Human Givens approach which summarised this much better 20 years ago. And watch any Jordan Peterson YouTube clip on depression as it gives you far greater depth in 5 minutes from a trained clinical psychologist not a disgraced leftie hack.

Take a look at this video summary.
My hesitations are:
He seems to miss out some causes such as repetitive thought (and hence mindfulness practice) and, curiously, adult trauma.

Johan Hari interviewed prominent researchers in the field to find the answer. An award-winning journalist and best selling author, Hari suffered from depression, which ran in his family. He took antidepressants in progressively stronger doses, but inevitably the sadness returned.
Hari noticed a tremendous increase in the American use of antidepressants over several decades. Today about one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking antidepressants. His book explains why are so many more people apparently feeling depressed and severely anxious. Something changed. Hari came to understood that depression is not caused by a defective brain. Instead, anxiety and depression are reactions to how we are living.
What are environmental factors causing anxiety? In a word, the cause is disconnection -- from meaningful work, from other people, from meaningful values, from nature, from a secure future.
Gallup finds that 87 percent of workers are either not engaged or are actively disengaged from their jobs. Nearly twice as many people hate their jobs as love their jobs. Depression among British civil servants correlates with their rank, with higher ranked bureaucrats suffering less depression than those lower on the totem pole. The degree of control a worker has over his job is the key factor, even among workers with the same ranking.
"More people say they feel lonely than ever before," and research shows that loneliness leads to depression. In most cases in one five-year study, loneliness preceded depressive symptoms.
Humans evolved in tribes, and being part of a tribe was necessary for survival. "Loneliness isn’t just some inevitable human sadness, like death. It’s a product of the way we live now." Highly social groups such as the Amish and the Hutterites have very low rates of loneliness.
In his book Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam of Harvard meticulously documented the sharp decline in community involvement in the US since the 1960s. Putnam also found we do fewer activities with our families, such as eating meals or watching tv together.
Americans have been polled for decades about how many close friends they have; at one time the answer was three, but today the most common answer is none. In short, there has been an unprecedented social crash, which prevents us from fulfilling our desire for belonging.
Cyberspace connection doesn't fill the void. The inordinate amount of time young people spend on smartphones further reduces the time they spend in face-to-face interaction.
"Online connection is a pale imitation of face-to-face connection that we social animals crave. The difference between being online and being physically among people is a bit like the difference between pornography and sex: it addresses a basic itch, but it’s never satisfying. Social media can’t compensate us psychologically for what we have lost—social life."
Another cause of depression is the loss of status and respect. Among baboons, the lowest ranking members of the troop have the highest levels of stress hormones, although having an insecure status was the one thing even more distressing than having a low status. In other words, stress is highest when status is low or is threatened. Depressed humans have the same stress hormone found in low-ranking male baboons. Human depression and anxiety are responses to the constant status anxiety many of us live with today.
Research by Wilkinson and Picket finds that the more unequal the society, the more prevalent all forms of mental illness are. The higher the inequality, the higher the depression, which strongly suggests that something about inequality seems to be driving up depression and anxiety. This doesn’t affect only people at the bottom; in a highly unequal society, everyone has to think about their status a lot, and whether they are in danger of falling into lower status.
What role do genes play in depression? The best research on identical twins reveals that 37 percent of depression is inherited, while for severe anxiety, it is between 30 and 40 percent. "So genes increase your sensitivity, sometimes significantly, but they aren’t—in themselves—the cause. Experts agree that depression caused solely by internal brain malfunction is rare or nonexistent, with the exception of bipolar or manic depressive disorders where genes play a bigger role.
If Hari is right that depression is not a brain disease, then pills are not the appropriate treatment for most people. So what is? Hari says treatment would change if doctors called depression disconnection. "If disconnection is the main driver of our depression and anxiety, we need to find ways to reconnect." The Amish have low rates of depression because they have a dense community network that provides a profound sense of belonging and meaning.
Alienated workers need to become reconnected to meaningful work. They need to overcome the feelings of being controlled and having no say and little status. An alternative to the corporation is the democratic cooperative, which better engages partner/workers than the hierarchical corporate structure. Partners are happier, less anxious, and less depressed than they had been working in the kind of top-down organizations that dominate our society. People are less anxious where they feel they have some control and input, as opposed to just being given orders.
Finally, he would address anxiety related to low income by having government provide a guaranteed basic income. Studies of this policy show recipients have less stress, a reduced sense of financial insecurity, fewer doctor visits for anxiety and depression, and more time with their kids.
Lost Connections reads like a series of stories rather than an academic journal. Hari's interviews with researchers and formerly depressed people make the book more interesting and readable. Some of his contentions are debatable, but he certainly persuades readers to rethink what we know about depression. ###

Three decades ago I was finally forced to seek help. And I mean forced. I was that guy in the corner office of a large organization, I owned an impressive amount of stuff, traveled the world, and split my holidays between Aspen and the Caribbean. And I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. There was no reason to. And if I hadn’t addressed it, I’d probably still be there.
I, too, was treated with SSRIs and they worked remarkably well. And I could not have cared less if that was a function of the placebo effect or the drugs were addressing some chemical imbalance in my brain. I still don’t, to be honest.
I do, however, care about continuous improvement in my overall health and well-being. View the beautiful valley before you from atop the mountain and you’ll seek a more magnificent mountain. I have little fear of falling back to where I was because I ultimately went through extensive psychotherapy with a brilliant and insightful doctor and he taught me how to fish, or climb, as it were.
Johann Hari has provided a delightful refresher course, although that understates the contribution of this book. He has also reframed the discussion in a way that only a fellow traveler and gifted writer could. He has made both the problems and the solutions very accessible and in so doing has broadened both the audience and the quality of the dialogue.
Which is why, I think, this is a book not for the depressed and anxious, but for all of humanity. Depression is often defined as a very specific manifestation of issues each and every one of us faces at some time in our lives. That doesn’t mean that different manifestations are any less painful or debilitating. Addiction is just one example. Are you drinking too much because you’re addicted or depressed? It doesn’t matter.
That’s not to suggest that the source of all pain is universal. That, I think, would be naïve. We are quite literally defined by our experiences and once you’ve been around for a couple of decades or more you are experientially unique.
Mark Twain once quipped, “History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes.” And so it is with mental and physical well-being. We’re more alike with each other and with the baboons of the savanna than we are different.
I won’t give away the details of the book because you need to experience the context within which the author unveils the problems and their solutions. Let’s just say that the title is appropriate. It’s all about connections.
I have given a great deal of thought, and now have the time to do so, as to how to re-establish the connections that have been lost in our current world. As Johann so clearly established, it is the loss at the heart of our growing collective angst and disillusionment. I have been particularly interested, in light of my executive career, with re-establishing purpose and connection in the workplace. When I began my career we never talked about work/life balance, not because we didn’t work hard or our lives outside of work weren’t important, but because our careers were an integral part of our life. We achieved connection, purpose, identity, and status there, no matter what job title you held.
But that is all gone today and I have met few, even in the C-suites of corporate America, who honestly claim to get any real fulfillment from their work. And that is a function of lost connection. That loss, however, has resulted in an even bigger loss - the loss of trust that connection enables. There is no trust in the world most of us live and work in today. And by trust I don’t mean the trust to set a pile of money on the table and leave the room. I mean the trust to know that the people you work with have compassion, humility, and optimism; are competent in what they do; and have some sense of how they and we, as human beings and as a work unit, fit into the world.
I read a lot of books. And this is one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Johann never says so, but he is a fellow Pyrrhonist, I suspect. That, by the way, is the ultimate compliment – it’s where trust comes from. You can’t trust a person who hasn’t challenged himself or herself. And he clearly has.
This is a book you should read. Perhaps more importantly, this is a book your adolescent children should read. (I feel the same way about psychotherapy, actually. It should be mandatory when you turn sixteen.)
Thank you, Johann Hari.
