Beschreibung
Combining a scholar's care and thoroughness with searing personal insight, David A. Karp brings the private experience of depression into sharp relief, drawing on a remarkable series of intimate interviews with fifty depressed men and women. By turns poignant, disturbing, mordantly funny, and wise, Karp's interviews cause us to marvel at the courage of depressed people in dealing with extraordinary and debilitating pain. We hear what depression feels like, what it
means to receive an "official" clinical diagnosis, and what depressed persons think of the battalion of mental health experts-doctors, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and therapists-employed to help them. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their mid-sixties, the people
Karp profiles reflect on their working lives, career aspirations, and intimate relationships, and confide strategies for overcoming paralyzing episodes of hopelessness. Throughout, Karp probes the myriad ways society contributes to widespread alienation and emotional exhaustion.
In a new and extensive introduction since the original publication of Speaking of Sadness twenty years ago, Karp evaluates the state of and social movements for the depression experience. He traces his personal depression journey along with the reception of his readers since the book's original publication. In addition, he offers a clear perspective on the consequences of wholesale medicalization permeating cultural treatment of depression, and calls towards a movement to listen to and
to voice the experiences of the marginalized.
Speaking of Sadness remains distinctive in its dedication to recounting stories and discovering clear patterns in them. Karp pierces through the terrifying isolation of depression to uncover the connections linking the depressed as they undertake their personal journeys through this very private hell. This book will bring new understanding to professionals seeking to see the world as their clients do, and provide vivid insights and renewed empathy to anyone who cares for someone living with the
cruel unpredictability of depression.
Rezension
This sociological consideration of illness and disease in contemporary America comes from a professor (Boston Coll.) who uses his own suffering, treatment, and theory along with reports of 50 others who volunteered to talk with him about their major depressive episodes. Karp writes well, addressing psychological, chemical, and cultural perspectives, with much credit to C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman, and Arthur Kleinman. Many psychiatrists would agree that too little attention is paid to the nature of the pain and the impact of social context on our definitions of normality and treatment. "Self-help" comes under fire, too, as shallow ideology in a time of advancing anomie. A careful, honest writer, Karp has produced a classic equal to William Styron's Darkness Visible (LJ 8/90) and Clifford Beers's A Mind That Found Itself (1908). Highly recommended for sufferers, would-be healers, and anyone interested in the effects of depression. E. James Lieberman, Library Journal
