How Sadness Survived The Evolutionary Basis of Depression

Is depression a disease, a medical disorder suffered by humans for millennia, or is it a modern western malaise? Actually, neither perspective is helpful in trying to get to grips with this uniquely disabling but intriguing state of mind. The truth is that depression is multifaceted: it can lead to great insights and achievements, as well as great tragedies. This book is a critical overview of ideas about depression, some new, some old, which fall under the discipline of 'evolutionary psychology'. Why should a condition causing so much pain and disability occur so commonly? Rather than being a.