Depression and the Erosion of the Self in Late Modernity

Barbara Dowds, PhD, is a humanistic and integrative psychotherapist in the Dublin area. She teaches on the BSc in counselling and psychotherapy and is director of the MA in integrative psychotherapy in the Personal Counselling Institute (PCI College). For seven years she was on the editorial board of the Irish psychotherapy journal, 'Eisteach'. Barbara was a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, until 2002 when she changed careers and began practising as a psychotherapist.

Barbara Dowds brings a wealth of disciplinary perspectives to the subject of depression. Alongside analysing 21 published memoirs of depression, and sensitively demonstrating depression’s many nuances, she threads in relevant psychotherapeutic theory, and discusses a biopsychosocial model rooted in early life experiences. Dowds concisely presents evolutionary, neuroscience, genetic, epigenetic and microbiological factors. Linking these foci with social breakdown phenomena, she examines depression as a disorder of the self. This book is surely one of the most passionate, intelligent and hopeful contributions to our understanding of an accelerating modern epidemic. It deserves the attention of all mental health professionals, social scientists and enquiring individuals. Colin Feltham, Emeritus Professor, Sheffield Hallam University. His most recent works are Feltham, C. (2017) Depressive Realism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Routledge) and Sarraf, M., Woodley of Menie, M. & Feltham, C. (forthcoming) Modernity, Nihilism and Mental Health (Routledge). This book's deep, multifaceted exploration of depression challenges our current thinking. For Barbara Dowds, depression is not so much about 'mood' or genes as it is about the problem of getting innate human needs met. Dowds is equally at home whether she is discussing this in terms of early child development, a loss of connection with others or altered physical sense of self, or depression as the lurking underbelly of our narcissistic and materialistic society. I admire her wide reach and agree with her that the growing epidemic of depression requires social change as well as individual support.Sue Gerhardt, author of Why Love Matters (Routledge) and The Selfish Society (Simon & Schuster).

• IntroductionPart I: The Self: Experience and Development Chapter One: The experience of depressive breakdown: the role of loss and rejectionChapter Two: The many ways of not being true to yourselfChapter Three: Depression as consequence and cause of somatic conditionsChapter Four: Childhood development: what does it take to build a self? Part II: The Science of Depression Chapter Five: Low mood as an appropriate adaptive response: an evolutionary perspectiveChapter Six: What science can tell us about depression: neuroscience, genetics and epigenetics; gut microbiotaPart III: A Depressive Society? The Impact on the Self, Relationships and Meaning Chapter Seven: A non-facilitating environment?: the role of contemporary society and culture Chapter Eight: Empty (narcissistic), false or fragmented: disorders of the self in later modernity, Chapter Nine: The centrality of relationships: anxiety and the loss of connectionChapter Ten: Depression and Meaninglessness: the loss of connecting and experiencingConclusions Chapter Eleven: Fundamental human needs: a conclusion