‘Lost Connections’ by Johann Hari, Part 2

In my last blog, I described Johann Hari’s enthralling and inspirational book Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. This has to be one of the most important books I have read in the mental health field since I first started working in this arena over 40 years ago.

Johann asks himself, given all his new knowledge garnered during his research for the book, what he would say to his teenage self just before he popped his first antidepressant drug—he took the drugs for 13 years—if he could go back in time.

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‘Consumerism: Dissatisfaction guarenteed’ By Phil Hanlon

I continue the excellent series of videos by Professor Phil Hanlon centred around ‘What’s next for the health of society’ from his Afternow website.

‘In this video Phil Hanlon explores in more depth what ‘modernity’ is and why it has created current levels of ‘dis-ease’ in the modern world.

Modernity has brought many benefits (including technological improvements, material comfort, modern medicine and health care etc), but the downside includes the ‘dis-eases’ rehearsed in the earlier videos. 

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‘Life is an amazing gift’ by Wee Willie Winkie

P4071127‘Life is such an amazing gift. I wake up every single morning with a huge smile on my face. I open my door as I put the kettle on and take a deep breath of air. This feeling never gets old and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

I’m not waking up with the immediate thoughts of heroin, or having to go to work to do a job I didn’t choose because I liked it – it was all about flexible hours and good money. My thoughts are my own and not influenced by drugs.

Life is so simple for me now, it doesn’t matter what happens. I look back on my past – the homelessness, the overdosing, my attempted suicide and think, “If I can survive that, I can survive anything.” So I never get depressed or down about things. It’s fantastic.

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