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Saturday, April 15, 2006

Saturday, April 15, 2006 11:02 am by M.   No comments
The Washingtonian publishes an article about depression and antidepressants,

This article focuses on two of the newest drugs for depression, Serzone and Effexor, because--as new drugs--they ought to be tested to high standards and might offer advantages over Prozac, now in its tenth year. But what does the record say?

The author, Thomas J. Moore, uses Charlotte Brontë's Villette to describe the sometimes underrated dimension of a depression:

Those who have not personally experienced major depression should not underestimate the severity of the disorder. Few afflictions are so capable of causing suffering. Here's how Charlotte Brontë described an episode of depression in her novel Villette:

"Indescribably was I torn, racked, and oppressed in mind: Galled was my innermost spirit with an unutterable sense of despair about the future. Motive there was none why I should try to recover or wish to live; and yet quite unendurable was the pitiless and haughty voice in which Death challenged me to engage his unknown terrors." (from Chapter 15 - The Long Vacation, just before Lucy 'confesses' to a Catholic priest)

Modern psychiatry has reduced Brontë's poetic account of a dark cloud over the human spirit into a dry list.

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