JOHANN HARI’S CONTROVERSIAL NEW BOOK TAKES A FRESH APPROACH TO THE FIGHT AGAINST DEPRESSION

WORDS: MATTHEW TODD ILLUSTRATIONS: VICENTE MARTÍ SOLAR

DEPRESSION

Johann Hari is nervous about the release of his second book, despite the success of his first, Chasing The Scream: The Last Days of the War on Drugs, which has been translated into 11 languages and will soon be made into a film. It’s not that he has any doubts about the work but because “this one feels more personal”. Indeed it is.

Lost Connections is about what he believes are the real causes of depression and anxiety and the answers he thinks will make a dent in this Western epidemic. In the UK, one in every 11 people at any one time are taking anti-depressants and their use has risen by 108 per cent since 2006, according to the book.

This is something Johann has direct experience of. As a child, he was subjected to violent abuse. Years later, he was besieged with crippling depression, which has lasted for most of his adult life. I went to his North London flat where he told me how, as a teenager, he turned to the person who society tells us will help — his GP — and this decision had a lifelong impact on him. One that led, ultimately, to the new book.

“I went to the doctor and said I felt like there was pain leaking out of me and I didn’t understand why”, he tells me, taking a sip of water. “The doctor said, ‘well, that’s depression’, and he told me a story that everyone was being told in the Nineties: ‘There’s a chemical called serotonin that makes people feel good. Some people are naturally lacking in this chemical and you’re clearly one of them. Take these drugs and they’ll boost your serotonin levels and you’ll feel fine again’.”

He was prescribed a course of anti-depressants, went away and took the drugs, and for a while he felt they worked. So much so that he became evangelical about them, recommending the miracle happy pills to everyone he knew.