The Frustrating Inadequacy of Antidepressants

In 1897, the French sociologist Émile Durkheim decided to study and compare the suicide rates of different religions. He found that Protestants were most likely to commit suicide, and Jews least likely. Durkheim chalked it up to the absence of clergy and confessions in Protestantism, which he believed promoted loneliness, as well as the religion’s do-it-yourself spirit. If you don’t manage to do it yourself, then, it might lead you to feel profoundly, irreparably bad.

In her new book, , Lauren Slater recalls Durkheim’s work to suggest that perhaps it’s partly because of America’s Protestant roots that our emotional wounds are so deep. Antidepressants are one of the most in the United States, but their side effects and trial-and-error nature often than placebo. Still, they are, for now, the best treatment we have for a disease that many people find crippling.