Most Important Concepts

Action Points

Chapter Recap

Introduction: A Mystery

Part 1: The crack in the old story

1 - The wand

• The vast majority of the effect of antidepressants is simply a placebo effect.
  • On a Hamilton scale, ranging from 0 to 51, antidepressants score about 1.8 points better than a placebo sugar pill. Almost no meaningful effect at all.
  • Yet, side effects are very real: weight gain, sexual dysfunction, major sweating.

2 - Imbalance

• There is no scientific evidence that suggests depression is caused by a chemical imbalance.

3 - The grief exception

• Depression is a signal of a deeper problem. Stop treating the symptoms, and get to the deeper problem.

4 - The first flag on the moon

Part 2: Disconnection: Nine causes of depression and anxiety

6 - Cause one: Disconnection from meaningful work

• Doing work where you feel like you don’t matter causes depression.

7 - Cause two: Disconnection from other people

• Loneliness causes depression, and is in fact a leading cause of death.
• We are living in a culture where people are not getting the connections they need in order to be healthy human beings.
  • Our obsessive social media use is an attempt to fill a hole, that was already there before we invented the smartphone.
• People must belong to a tribe.

8 - Cause three: Disconnection from meaningful values