Combining a scholar's care and thoroughness with searing personal insight, David A. Karp brings the private experience of depression into sharp relief, drawing on a remarkable series of intimate interviews with fifty depressed men and women. By turns poignant, disturbing, mordantly funny, and wise, Karp's interviews cause us to marvel at the courage of depressed people in dealing with extraordinary and debilitating pain. We hear what depression feels like, what it means to receive an "official" clinical diagnosis, and what depressed persons think of the battalion of mental health experts--doctors, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and therapists--employed to help them. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their mid-sixties, the people Karp profiles reflect on their working lives, career aspirations, and intimate relationships, and confide strategies for overcoming paralyzing episodes of hopelessness. Throughout, Karp probes the myriad ways society contributes to widespread alienation and emotional exhaustion. In a new and extensive introduction since the original publication of Speaking of Sadness twenty years ago, Karp evaluates the state of and social movements for the depression experience. He traces his personal depression journey along with the reception of his readers since the book's original publication. In addition, he offers a clear perspective on the consequences of wholesale medicalization permeating cultural treatment of depression, and calls towards a movement to listen to and to voice the experiences of the marginalized. Speaking of Sadness remains distinctive in its dedication to recounting stories and discovering clear patterns in them. Karp pierces through the terrifying isolation of depression to uncover the connections linking the depressed as they undertake their personal journeys through this very private hell. This book will bring new understanding to professionals seeking to see the world as their clients do, and provide vivid insights and renewed empathy to anyone who cares for someone living with the cruel unpredictability of depression.
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Speaking of Sadness, based on fifty in-depth interviews, provides first-hand accounts of the depression experience while discovering clear regularities in the ways that personal identities are shaped over the course of an "illness career."
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Introduction: Voices and the Politics of Illness 1. Living with Depression 2. The Dialectics of Depression 3. Illness and Identity 4. The Meanings of Medication 5. Coping and Adapting 6. Family and Friends 7. Sickness, Self, and Society Postscript: Sociology, Spirituality, and Suffering Appendix: Thinking about Sampling Notes References Index
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This sociological consideration of illness and disease in contemporary America comes from a professor (Boston Coll.) who uses his own suffering, treatment, and theory along with reports of 50 others who volunteered to talk with him about their major depressive episodes. Karp writes well, addressing psychological, chemical, and cultural perspectives, with much credit to C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman, and Arthur Kleinman. Many psychiatrists would agree that too little attention is paid to the nature of the pain and the impact of social context on our definitions of normality and treatment. "Self-help" comes under fire, too, as shallow ideology in a time of advancing anomie. A careful, honest writer, Karp has produced a classic equal to William Styron's Darkness Visible (LJ 8/90) and Clifford Beers's A Mind That Found Itself (1908). Highly recommended for sufferers, would-be healers, and anyone interested in the effects of depression. E. James Lieberman, Library Journal
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Praise for the first edition: "The millions of people who suffer hard and long with excruciating depressions will recognize themselves in these pages....Speaking of Sadness provides an open challenge to wrestle with the difficult questions."--Martha Manning, The New York Times Book Review "A careful, honest writer, Karp has produced a classic equal to William Styron's Darkness Visible."--Library Journal "Finally a book from the inside...by a scholar who admits to knowing this aspect of the human condition in his own person and has seen beyond the superstition of the 'medical model,' expressed in the lived experience of real and beautifully articulate people who, like himself, have been there."--Kate Millett, author of The Loony Bin Trip This sociological consideration of illness and disease in contemporary America comes from a professor (Boston Coll.) who uses his own suffering, treatment, and theory along with reports of 50 others who volunteered to talk with him about their major depressive episodes. Karp writes well, addressing psychological, chemical, and cultural perspectives, with much credit to C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman, and Arthur Kleinman. Many psychiatrists would agree that too little attention is paid to the nature of the pain and the impact of social context on our definitions of normality and treatment. "Self-help" comes under fire, too, as shallow ideology in a time of advancing anomie. A careful, honest writer, Karp has produced a classic equal to William Styron's Darkness Visible (LJ 8/90) and Clifford Beers's A Mind That Found Itself (1908). Highly recommended for sufferers, would-be healers, and anyone interested in the effects of depression. E. James Lieberman, Library Journal
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Selling point: Twenty years after its publication, Speaking of Sadness remains among the few sociological treatments of depression rooted in careful analysis of first-hand accounts. Selling point: Gives voice to personal experience struggling with depression, revealing an account of mental illness that is often marginalized within society. Selling point: Suggests individual lives and supportive communities are shaped and enriched by each other's narratives, helping readers to feel far less alone and less responsible for their suffering. Selling point: Discovers repeating, underlying conceptual themes in the depression experience. Selling point: An analytical approach through the included stories provides readers a form of vocabulary and longstanding patterns of depression for re-visioning their depression experience.
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David A. Karp, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Boston College where he taught for 42 years. He has written or co-authored ten books and more than fifty journal articles and book chapters. His work appears in such periodicals as Symbolic Interaction, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Qualitative Health Research, the Gerontologist, and the International Journal of Aging and Human Development. His work has largely clustered in three areas: urban life and culture, aging, and the study of mental health and illness.
Les mer
Selling point: Twenty years after its publication, Speaking of Sadness remains among the few sociological treatments of depression rooted in careful analysis of first-hand accounts. Selling point: Gives voice to personal experience struggling with depression, revealing an account of mental illness that is often marginalized within society. Selling point: Suggests individual lives and supportive communities are shaped and enriched by each other's narratives, helping readers to feel far less alone and less responsible for their suffering. Selling point: Discovers repeating, underlying conceptual themes in the depression experience. Selling point: An analytical approach through the included stories provides readers a form of vocabulary and longstanding patterns of depression for re-visioning their depression experience.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780190260965
Publisert
2016
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press Inc
Vekt
488 gr
Høyde
209 mm
Bredde
143 mm
Dybde
21 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
424

Forfatter

Biographical note

David A. Karp, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Boston College where he taught for 42 years. He has written or co-authored ten books and more than fifty journal articles and book chapters. His work appears in such periodicals as Symbolic Interaction, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Journal of Qualitative Health Research, the Gerontologist, and the International Journal of Aging and Human Development. His work has largely clustered in three areas: urban life and culture, aging, and the study of mental health and illness.