Lincoln’s Melancholy How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

[Guest guest]

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2007/levine0107.html

Read the whole thing, it's great!

Excerpts:

If we declare depression to be nothing but a disease, as Kramer demands in

Against Depression, then billions of dollars will continue to pour into biotech

research and treatment and we will continue to ignore the societal and cultural

causes of depression. If instead, we see strengths in those with depressive

temperaments, as does Wolf Shenk in Lincoln’s Melancholy, then we become

uneasy about handing over our despair to profit-hungry biotech corporations.

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One wonders whether the medicalization of depression—which the psychiatric

establishment claimed would eliminate the stigma of “character defect”—instead

created the stigma of “biochemical defect.”

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Then how did Lincoln, without antidepressants or electroconvulsive treatment,

not only live a meaningful and productive life, but become for many the most

admired president in U.S. history? Lincoln hung in there with commonsense

selfhelp therapies such as humor and poetry and, ultimately, Lincoln’s

depression, rather than being an unfortunate disease, actually “fueled his

greatness.”