This post has been re-published (Dec. 2023) because it’s been updated to more clearly show the six social-environmental causes of depression as belonging to a larger system of social-environmental, psychological, and biological depression-causes.
Johann Hari’s book Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope, is one of the very best things I’ve read in recent years. It’s one of those unusual gems you find, that make you want to tell everyone about it, but because it’s so rich and deep, it’s very difficult to convey, in a couple sentences, what it’s about and why it’s so amazing. You really need to speak, or write, at some length. Lost Connections fascinates in part because its central topic is several specific, environmental causes of depression, as well as corresponding remedies.
Does “environmental causes” sound strange, in the context of depression? Or perhaps simply unfamiliar? To me, although it seemed reasonable enough that depression should have environmental causes, it was nonetheless quite unfamiliar. I had, for the most part, not encountered depression being talked about in that way. (We are, to be clear, talking about depressive disorders, and not simply depressive feelings.) I had encountered depression portrayed as caused either by somewhat mysterious “imbalances” or “deficiencies,” or by adverse past experiences. That first portrayal didn’t make a lot of sense to me, although that’s another topic. The second portrayal — depression as caused by past, adverse experiences — did make sense (and still does). But environmental causes? This sounded reasonable, but I had only a vague notion of it. I simply hadn’t encountered that topic in any kind of serious detail before.
Apparently, as I learned from Hari’s book, many environmental causes of depression are scientifically well established, and the research is not necessarily new. If this knowledge is in some sense secret, it is an “open secret,” perhaps suppressed in some sense, but certainly neglected in terms of what is most communicated to the general public. Even if this information weren’t so relatively unknown, it would still be a worthwhile and useful read. And not only as a casual read, but even as something to re-read, study, and take notes on. Why? For at least three reasons.
First, because Hari brings together clear explanations of six common, environmental causes of depression.
These are arranged within a higher-level division of depression-causes into
I. social-environmental,
II. psychological, and
III. biological.
There is some good explanation of psychological and biological causes, which is important for completing the larger picture and providing context for the social-environmental causes. The book’s primary focus, however, is on six different types of social-environmental cause. These six types of cause are as follows, each being described as a specific sort of disconnection, viz.
Disconnection from:
1. meaningful work
2. other people
3. meaningful values
4. status and respect
5. the natural world
6. a hopeful or secure future
It’s very useful to have these gathered together in one source, each explained in some detail yet accessibly.
Second, Hari doesn’t stop with accounts of these causes, but proceeds to consider how each environmental cause of depression might be ameliorated or remedied. As is logical, each of these “non-pharmaceutical anti-depressants” is presented as a type of reconnection, corresponding at least roughly to a type of depression-causing disconnection.
Third, Lost Connections also takes up the matter of how effective, or how ineffective, anti-depressant drugs really are, at least for most people. This is actually the first part of the book, and it’s what most shocked me. I don’t want to say too much about it here, in part because that’s another topic, but perhaps in a future post I’ll be able to present a concise version of Hari’s account of this matter.
I want to note two very important things, so that I don’t give the wrong impression. First, although Hari focuses on environmental causes of depression, he does not deny or minimize the role of unhealed psychological trauma or other adverse past experiences. There are even two chapters given to trauma (and healing) specifically, as well as a chapter devoted to the role of biological causes. It’s just that the main focus of Lost Connections is on environmental causes and environmental “treatments” for depression.
Second, and this is one of the unusual and excellent aspects of Lost Connections, Hari gives attention to the implication that if depression is caused by so many environmental factors, it is not an individual problem, nor an individual failing, nor can it be solved at an individualistic level. There are some things that some of us can do, to some extent, at an individual level which will improve our individual condition with respect to depression. The section on solutions does investigate, acknowledge, and present these, and so it is certainly useful to each of us at an individualistic level. Yet a lot of these environmental factors, these environmental causes of depression, are also societal patterns and conditions which most people cannot simply change for themselves on their own. In other words there is real attention paid to the way these depression-causing factors are societal conditions which require societal as well as individual solutions.
Here’s a post which links to multiple further posts exploring the causes of and solutions to depression discussed in Hari’s Lost Connections: This Series of Posts Concerning Depression’s Social-Environmental Causes, Solutions, and Johann Hari’s “Lost Connections”
Here is the book’s website
And here is its Goodreads page
Thank you for taking the time to fully read this post. Have you read Lost Connections before, or implemented any of its natural “anti-depressants”? Do these correspond at all with any New Year’s resolutions you’ve made?
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