Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope (2018) is a work of journalistic nonfiction by Johann Hari. In some editions, it has the subtitle Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression instead of Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope. The work argues for looking at the social and economic causes of depression, rather than viewing depression as mainly a chemical imbalance.

Hari is a Scottish-Swiss journalist who was diagnosed with clinical depression as a teenager. His book taps into personal experiences and includes interviews with doctors, psychologists, and social scientists, and it makes a case for why attitudes about depression and its treatment need to be reconsidered. This guide is based on the 2018 paperback edition published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Content Warning: The source material features references to assault, drug addiction, suicide, and mental illness. Additionally, the source material may use outdated or offensive terminology that is reproduced in this guide only in direct quotes.

Summary

Lost Connections is split into three parts. In the first, Hari relates how he was diagnosed with clinical depression before he started college. His doctor prescribed him Paxil, an SSRI, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which is believed to treat depression by increasing the level of the chemical serotonin in the brain.