{"id":2713,"date":"2018-01-05T10:10:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T10:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thisisbanter.com\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2018-01-05T10:10:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T10:10:19","slug":"a-conversation-with-johann-hari-187-jan-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banter.test\/a-conversation-with-johann-hari-187-jan-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"A conversation with Johann Hari (187, Jan 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johann Hari<\/a>\u00a0joins us at Banter<\/a> on Tuesday January 23 to talk about his\u00a0new book and other matters.\u00a0Lost Connections:\u00a0Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression\u2014and the Unexpected Solution<\/a> is about a subject matter which affects\u00a0many people in Ireland and around\u00a0the world.<\/p>\n

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Indeed, the\u00a0author himself has suffered from depression since he was a child.\u00a0He\u00a0was told by doctors that his problems were caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain and started taking chemical antidepressants at 18. Yet, like so many others, he remained depressed. The proportion of people on antidepressants who continue to be depressed is found to be between 65 and 80 percent.<\/p>\n

Hari thought he was unusual for remaining depressed while taking a chemical treatment \u2013 but it turned out he was typical.\u00a0Using his training as a social scientist at Cambridge University, Hari began to investigate the causes of depression and anxiety \u2013 and discovered the cutting edge science that shows there is strong evidence they are not caused by a spontaneous chemical imbalance in our brains.<\/p>\n

He discovered that, in reality, depression and anxiety are caused largely by crucial changes in the way we are living. If\u00a0the problem isn\u2019t mainly in our brains but in our lives, a whole different set of paths out of depression and anxiety open up. This led him to discover the evidence for seven new paths out of depression and anxiety \u2013 ones that are very different to the paths we have been offered up to now.<\/p>\n

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Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression\u2014and the Unexpected Solutions <\/strong>is the story of Hari\u2019s three-year journey into this evidence, and gives rise to a radically new way of thinking about depression. It is based on three years of detailed research covering over 30,000 miles. Hari conducted over 200 interviews, ranging from the world\u2019s leading scientists, to an Amish village, to an uprising in Berlin, to a series of remarkable experiments in Baltimore.\u00a0Using vivid human stories and the best social science, he explains the evidence for seven crucial changes that are making us depressed and anxious, along with two biological causes that interact with them.<\/p>\n