This Sadness

a photograph with the letters SAD printed on it
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Original Air Date: 
December 16, 2007

We're into the holiday season. Or, as some might say, the seasonal affective disorder season. Or better yet, the depression season. So have another cocktail, another piece of cake. Take a few pills. It'll be January soon enough. But why are we trying to force happiness anyway? I mean, what's so wrong with being sad? In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, how psychiatry turned sadness into clinical depression.

Jerome Wakefield on Sorrow and Depression

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Audio

Jerome Wakefield tells Steve Paulson how the medical profession's attempts to make precise diagnoses have led them to define emotional states as medical conditions.

Joshua Shenk on President Lincoln's Depression

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Audio

Joshua Shenk tells Jim Fleming that Abraham Lincoln never attempted suicide, that we know of, but referred to it in a poem he wrote, and Shenk recites the poem.

Eric Steel on "The Bridge"

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
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Eric Steel tells Steve Paulson that his crew filmed The Golden Gate Bridge every daylight minute for one year, and thus witnessed many suicides and even more attempts.

Michael Nye on San Antonio Portraits

To The Best Of Our Knowledge
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Photographer Michael Nye made portraits of mentally ill and homeless people in San Antonio, where he lives, and  also recorded their stories.

Show Details 📻
Airdates
November 23, 2008
Guests: 

Jerome Wakefield

Author

Joshua Shenk

Author

Eric Steel

Director

Michael Nye

Photographer
Categories: 
Current Events
Social Trends
Science
Last modified: 
March 31, 2023