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How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression
 
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How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression (Paperback)

by Paul Keedwell (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Customers buy this book with The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression by Darian Leader

How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression + The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression
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Review
Keedwell's book is remarkable for its profound respect for the subtlety of our experience of depression. Until recently stigma and discrimination has made it difficult to talk frankly about what it feels like to be depressed, and to look with clarity at what insights and benefits we may gain from it. He argues convincingly from the new science Evolutionary Psychology that there must be some significant evolutionary advantage to depression (as well as the obvious costs) --Jonathan Naess, founder of anti-stigma charity Stand to Reason

'Looks at how sufferers may experience long-term beneficial effects from this debilitating disease...Recommended.' --Choice

Product Description
'What I am offering is a critical overview of ideas about depression, some new, some old, which fall under the discipline of 'evolutionary psychology'(EP). Do most types of depression represent an adaptation - an evolved mechanism which has improved our survival and reproductive value in our ancestral environment? Has depression been selected? Could it still be useful to us today? This book makes a contribution to the field while communicating the issues to a wider audience than EP currently receives and deserves. There are important implications for how we should prevent or treat an increasingly common condition, and how we might view the condition in a more constructive way.' - Paul Keedwell, in the Preface.

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How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression
89% buy the item featured on this page:
How Sadness Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression 4.3 out of 5 stars (3)
£12.34
The Loss of Sadness: How psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into depressive disorder
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The Loss of Sadness: How psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into depressive disorder 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£17.09
The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression
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The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression 4.0 out of 5 stars (4)
£6.69
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating and highly readable account of the "purpose" of depression, 29 Feb 2008
By N. Lawrence (Cardiff, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book presents a compelling and intuitive argument for the seemingly paradoxical survival of Depression in humans. If Depression is truly disadvantageous, as it appears to be to anyone who has been touched by it, why has it survived over thousands of years of evolution to be the widespread afflication that it is today?

Dr. Keedwell refutes the idea that Depression is simply a maladaptive by-product of the modern Western World and argues that (in its mild to moderate forms) it confers some advantages to sufferers - namely that it forces them to stop and reassess potentially futile or damaging situations and, after recovery, can make people more sensitive, empathic and productive.

The book is an easy and engaging read and the ideas presented are supported by a nice balance of personal anecdotes and key scientific studies. Dr. Keedwell also makes clever use of analogies to illustrate how the same processes of evolution that have shaped our bodies, sometimes resulting in physical illness, apply to our minds. Anyone with an interest in understanding Depression or the evolution of human nature will enjoy this book.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read for academics and sufferers alike, 29 Feb 2008
By O. Turnbull (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
In this well-written book, Paul Keedwell successfully bridges the divide between the educational thesis and populist "self-help".

Whilst presenting a new theory to explain why depression stubbornly persists across generations, cultures and geographies, he offers valuable insights to victims of this ubiquitous malaise by providing an explanation of the meaning behind their misery and indeed of potential benefits which may follow from it. He argues that we should be wary of labelling depression as a "disease", but consider it more as a natural response to stress which, on occasion, can be inappropriately pronounced.

Written in the style of essay-style chapters with an ongoing thread, Dr Keedwell constructs robust arguments for the positive sides of depression which serve both as a catalyst for debate within academia and as a comfort for the sufferer, helping in the understanding of the despair they are feeling. He writes from a position of authority on the subject as a practitioner and researcher of eminence and as a former casualty of depression himself.

I found this book enthralling and an easy-to-read new way of looking at depression and the positives which it can bring.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars DEPRESSIVE DARWINISM, 5 Feb 2009
By Peter Hurst "peter hurst" (wigan, england) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Firstly, it has to said that 'How Depression Survived: The Evolutionary Basis of Depression' has many things to be said in it's favour. It is concise, succinct and written in such a way as to engage with a popular audience (as oppposed to an esoteric academic circle.) Personal anecdote as well as allusions to film and literary works are all juxtaposed nicely with citations of key scientic studies. Despite this and despite Dr. Keedwell engaging writing style I feel I can only award the book three stars as the thesis that it propounds I feel to be fundamentally flawed.

The book ultimately proved to be disapointing despite my high hopes for it. The book takes as it's starting point that due to mankinds evolutionary heritage it is reasonable to postulate that if Depression is a human universal and not a cultural construct then the roots of it's survival must be as a consequence of it's adaptive function, otherwise it would literally have been bred out of human existence.

The argument that the different mood disorders have their positive aspects is not new - books such as 'Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fuelled His Greatness,' 'The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between a Little Craziness and a Lot of Success in America' plus 'Touched by Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament' have all done likewise - but what is new is the focus upon evolutionary psychology as the key explanatory factor in this equation.

The difficulty I have with the book is not it's use of evolutionary psychology, which I regard as an interesting and novel way of looking at the issues, but that in trying to locate the adaptive function of 'Depression' in human evolution the author presupposes that the contours of the concept of 'Depression' can be agreed upon with any great clarity.

The author does attempt near the beginning of the book to differentiate between:- 1.'DEPRESSION' from what might be described as:- 2. Ordinary and transient 'SADNESS' and then to bifurcate the former into 'mild/moderate' vs 'severe' (or 'melancholic' vs 'non-melancholic') but this in my opinion leads the book into difficulties because as anyone who has read 'The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sadness into Depressive Disorder' will be able to tell you: there are real question marks as to the validity of this distinction.

The erroneous bifurcation upon which the book's thesis is predicated upon leads the author into a maze of his own misconceptions. Dr. Keedwell contends that the 'mild to moderate' end of the Depressive spectrum is, to use the jargon, 'adaptive' in evolutionary terms by virtue of the fact that it forces the sufferer to to take time out and take stock, subsequently a reassessment of life goals can be made and facilitation of greater insight brought forth.

The problem remains that the argument as to whether one can truly truly regard this form of 'mild to moderate' Depression as such or whether it would be better categorised as a normal response to stressors encountered in one's life - i.e as 'SADNESS' -is not dwelt upon in the book thereby fatally undermining the larger points raised. The sub-title of the book namely: 'the evolutionary basis of DEPRESSION' is thus a misnomer.

My advise for anyone wishing to look into the topic more deeply would be to read 'The Anti-Depressant Era' by David Healy and the aforementioned 'The Loss of Sadness.'



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