When Is Sadness a Sickness?

Depression is a word used to describe a mood. It is also a diagnosis. The same word, depression, straddles many meanings across time and from place to place. It is at once a medical illness and a universal human experience. Jonathan Sadowsky's Empire of Depression (2021) traces the evolution of the concept of depression from ancient descriptions of melancholia to modern diagnostic criteria. Writings at least as far back as Hippocrates distinguish the sadness that occurs after a loss from the more pervasive and persistent unhappiness that came to be known as melancholia and then depression. This history is more than a chronicle; it draws on a number of sources to illustrate and illuminate how depression has been variously understood and particularly how psychiatrists attempt to help people suffering from a recognizable but complex disorder.