Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal & Natural History of Melancholia

Jeffery Smith was into his 8th year as a psychiatric case manager when his own struggles with clinical depression began. Eventually, all his prescribed antidepressant medications proved ineffective. He describes what happened after he decided to give them up, & sets out to get at the essence of -- using the old term for depression -- melancholia. Provides us with a "natural history" of this ancient illness. Draws on centuries of art, writing, & med. treatises inspired by the illness & its near kin, the melancholic temperament. Tells numerous instructive stories of people who fitted their lives to melancholia before the advent of modern drugs & therapies. "A provocative & highly original memoir."