Lost Connections Paperback – 18 January 2020

Very good book.. Just finished reading Kindle edition.. A perspective changing book, A must for those with anxiety and depression; for those who are care givers for people with depression and anxiety; those who want to understand depression and anxiety and for health care professionals in related fields.5 star rating for content, research, presentation, courage to go against the prevailing thinking in society and bigwigs, courage to accept incorrect stands taken by author (on this topic) in the past.But I recently read criticisms about book and author on Google. I am not in position to evaluate that in depth. So just mentioned this to have a balanced views. But personally I found great insights in this book.

I never expected that I am going to get such an excellent well researched book on anxiety and depression. This book is must because every second person in the world is going throe some sort of mental trauma. We all run for short cut and take pills. This must be stopped.

A must read for EVERYONE! Whether you’re a therapist, a life-coach, a teacher or just another human being who wants to understand himself and another human being better, this book is a must-read. Talks about depression from a non-clinical lens. Scientifically backed with research and throws light on where all our lifestyle plays a huge role in causing depression.

This book is really like a medicine for me. This book is for everyone because mostly we all conduct lonely life which can very easily gives us enormous pain. I like this book. I heard from many people they often old times are far better than now because in olden day, people are very closely lived together.

The book in general is insightful just that was not the “kept me hooked up” kind of book. A decent read in general.

Best book, should be readed by everyone.Author went into details and did real experiments on humans about their life na then prsented the results.Everything is so perfect.

Nice

Nice,absorbing book.Has a very simple ,analytical approach towards explaining things which really helps you in understanding things easily.Haven't completed the book as yet...but so far..so good......would recommend it to those people too who don't suffer from depression....helps you in empathasing with others suffering from it....makes the world a better place

This book did at least relieve my depression momentarily by replacing it with feeling of intense irritation, turning into anger the more I read. What a long winded and patronising piece of plagiarism which adds nothing to the field.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.

I've often wondered about depression. It seems to take so many forms, from people who are miserable because of their life situation, to those suffering the most excruciating grief over the loss of a loved one. How could it be that one 'illness' could show the same symptoms despite the massive variety of possible causes? How could all of this be because of a chemical imbalance in the brain? If I feel sad, does it mean that the same thing is going wrong with my brain as is happening to the brain of a woman who miscarries? It doesn't make sense.In 'Lost Connections' Johann Hari looks at depression from the inside. His own diagnosis of clinical depression led him to taking antidepressants for years, yet he never seemed to truly recover. As he wondered why, he began to question the assumptions that we have made in the past hundred years as to what the causes of depression are, and what depression actually is. This enlightening book is the result of his research, and as a lay reader on the topic I found it fascinating. His conclusions can be summed up rather simply: how is it possible to live happily in a world designed to make us miserable? When we re-frame depression that way, we see that the drugs won't work, they'll just make it worse: reconnection, as the title implies, is the route we must follow to escape our unhappiness.There are those who have written negative reviews of this book, and I can certainly sympathise with the them - for three reasons. Firstly, Hari calls into question a lot of what we take for granted, and when you are convinced that the solution to your depression lies in finding the right drug cocktail, being told that the drugs are unlikely to work at all can feel like a slap in the face. Secondly, some readers have long been aware of the research that Hari references; nothing in the book will come as a surprise to them. To those of us who have never before read up on this issue, however, the book serves its purpose very well, summarising what we know and what we don't know about depression. And third, the writing style is not perfect; it's what I would call 'Gladwell-lite.' There are too many attempts to make of the story a real narrative, which means backtracking again and again to introduce characters the 'proper' way. Doing this once or twice would be forgivable, but the fact that it happens dozens of times every chapter means that reading the book is sometimes more of a struggle than it should be.Despite any slightly negative words that I might offer about this text, I really have no hesitation in recommending it to everyone out there who either has depression, or is wondering how they might help somebody with depression. There's useful stuff in here - perhaps not the stuff that everybody wants or will use, but if you dig around and look for what resonates, you might find a new approach to living within these pages.

The media could not be loaded.  This book takes a fresh, practical look at the causes of depression which are under our control. Hari gives a hopeful checklist - things we can change or improve in our everyday lives which have been shown to influence the likelihood of depression.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.

This is a very powerful and important book. I heard an interview with the author on a podcast and was deeply moved by the stories he told about people around the world whose experiences offer a profound, challenging and paradigm-shifting perspective on the causes and solutions for depression and anxiety. Each chapter is beautifully written – the writing is compelling, actually – and has left me a lot to think about and implement. Depersonalising depression by talking about the societal causes for it is long overdue and for me, unbelievably helpful. People's brains aren't broken. Our pain is a messenger. The message? We badly need to reconnect. I wish everyon would read this book.

Johan Hari's has written a really interesting book here. For many of us who either suffer from depression or know people who do, these pages are extremely relevant. Hari himself has battled "the black dog" since his late teens and so this book was very personal to him. Hari's basic (and obvious) argument is that the most effective way to treat depression, and its close friend anxiety, is not with the prescriptions of never-ending doses of anti-depressants, but by addressing the underlying causes of the condition. Hari identifies what he believes to be those causes and then makes recommendations and suggestions as to how one can practically alleviate depression via lifestyle changes.In the course of researching the subject of depression and anxiety Hari has travelled many thousands of miles. From the USA and Canada to Europe and East Asia, Hari traversed the globe talking to various people, some highly qualified, in his quest for answers and ideas. Some of his conclusions will surprise you.Johann Hari is a well-known Left-wing writer in Great Britain and so it's no surprise that he attributes many of the causes of depression in the West to its capitalist lifestyle and culture.The huge wealth inequalities, selfish "junk" values and our almost constant exposure to advertising, has, according to Hari, created a society that has made us all prone to deep depression and anxiety. He believes that we have abandoned our natural social instincts and now live in cut-off small groups that are "disconnected" from the greater society. By isolating ourselves from each other we have removed the traditional support structures that human communities have enjoyed for many thousands of years. Only by reconnecting with each other can we solve this mental health problem. Hari points to groups such as the American Amish, where rates of depression are extremely low: these groups are tightly knit and its members look after each other.Personally, I don't agree with everything he's saying here. For instance the reason why some people put the acquisition of wealth above everything else isn't just because of advertising: often it's cultural. In many Asian societies, for example, wealth is revered above everything else, and so you'll hear stories of Japanese men working 80-hour weeks in the pursuit of riches just so that they can improve their social status. The fact that their neglected families are ruined doesn't seem to register with them.Where I believe that Hari is dead right is when he ascribes the causes of much depression to the way we have disconnected from each other. Most of us don't ever talk to our neighbours. In the book Hari tells the inspiring story of they way a number of disparate members of a Berlin community joined forces to fight local rent rises. During the struggle, gay, straight, Muslim, Christian, old and young all connected and found that they had more in common than they had believed. The members were uplifted and freed of the depression that had plagued their community.This is a fascinating book about a very important subject. It's well worth a read.