Disclaimer: we are not psychologists or psychiatrists, or in anyway giving medical advice.

Johann Hari was depressed as a young man. He was told a story about why he felt so down: that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. They say that the brains of depressed people have lower levels of serotonin (the happiness molecule). Then we’re told that Big Pharma has the answer. They’ve made drugs that can restore your serotonin levels back to “normal”. This version of the answer says that depression is a brain disease, and companies have the cure... for a profit of course.

When scientists tested the water supply in Western countries, they found find it laced with antidepressants. We're literally and figuratively awash with these drugs. What is startling in other cultures has become normal to the Western world. We've just accepted that a huge number of people are so distressed that they need to take a powerful chemical every day to pull themselves together.

Johann Hari has asked a distinctly different question. Could something other than bad brain chemistry be causing depression and anxiety?

This question led to 3 years of research and 200+ interviews. The story that it is all in our head has holes in it. What Johann Hari has found is another story: depression is largely due to the world and how we live in it. The factors that cause depression in society are everywhere. Even worse, they are on the rise.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.