The Noonday Demon (84 page)

114
The work on monkey rank and serotonin is reviewed in Michael McGuire and Alfonso Troisi’s
Darwinian Psychiatry,
pages 93 –94; 172–74.

114
The evidence that SSRIs can reverse patterns of aggression is in C. Sanchez et al., “The role of serotonergic mechanisms in inhibition of isolation-induced aggression in male mice,”
Psychopharmacology
110, no. 1–2 (1993).

115
There is some controversy regarding the frequency of side effects from many of the SSRIs, most notably Prozac. Most doctors and clinicians feel that the frequency of many of the side effects, especially reduced sexual drive and anorgasmia, was radically underestimated by the pharmaceutical companies in their initial testings.

115
The information from Anita Clayton is drawn from her presentation “Epidemiology, Classification, and Assessment of Sexual Dysfunction” delivered on May 13 at APA 2000 in Chicago.

116
The statistic on the discontinuation of antidepressants after six months comes from Dr. H. George Nurnberg’s presentation “Management of Antidepressant-Associated Sexual Dysfunction” delivered on May 13 at APA 2000 in Chicago.

116
For this catalog of pro-sexual drugs, see
Ibid.

117
For Viagra’s effect on nocturnal penile tumescence, see
Ibid.

117
For the idea of taking Viagra daily, see
Ibid.

117
Dr. Andrew Nierenberg presented his research in “Prevalence and Assessment of Antidepressant-Associated Dysfunction”; Dr. Julia Warnock presented her research in “Hormonal Aspects of Sexual Dysfunction in Women: Improvement with Hormone Replacement Therapy.” Both presentations were delivered on May 13 at APA 2000 in Chicago.

118
Considerable care must be taken in prescribing antidepressants of any kind to people with manic-depressive illness. In general, people with manic-depressive illness need to take a mood stabilizer—lithium or an anticonvulsant—with antidepressants.

119
I thank Dr. David McDowell of Columbia University for his discussion regarding the problem of benzodiazepine addiction.

120
Numbers concerning the efficacy of ECT vary: Peter Whybrow in his book
A Mood Apart
cites a rate of 85–90 percent, page 216; Francis Mondimore, in his book
Depression: The Mood Disease,
estimates a higher rate of over 90 percent, page 65. The numbers I have given reflect an approximate average of many published efficacy rates.

121
That right unilateral ECT is less impairing than, while just as effective as, bilateral ECT is reported in Harold Sackein et al., “A Prospective, Randomized, Double-Blind Comparison of Bilateral and Right Unilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy at Different Stimulus Intensities,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
57, no. 5 (2000).
They report that right unilateral ECT, when given at 500 percent of seizure threshold, is as effective as bilateral ECT, but causes less than one-sixth of the cognitive side effects of bilateral ECT.

122
For a general discussion of the methods of ECT, see Francis Mondimore’s
Depression: The Mood Disease,
and Elliot Valenstein’s
Great and Desperate Cures.

122
The statistic on death from ECT-based complications comes from Stacey Pamela Patton, “Electrogirl,”
Washington Post,
September 19, 1999.

122
The quotation from Richard Abrams comes from his book
Electroconvulsive Therapy,
page 75.

123
Manning described these pickets to me, which included groups of people organizing together and handing out leaflets against “electronic mind control.” Opposition such as this took place at an event sponsored by a private Northampton, Massachusetts, bookstore, but held at the Smith College library.

125
The passage from the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is taken from his manifesto. I would like to affirm that I admire his insights and deplore his methods.

133
Charlotte Brontë’s words appear in Juliet Barker’s
The Brontës,
page 599. I thank the artist Elaine Reichek for calling my attention to this passage.

135
I have taken the Chekhov quotation from the epigraph to Jane Kenyon’s poem “Having It Out with Melancholy,” in the volume
Constance,
page 21.

137
There are many studies on exercise and depression: one of the most rigorous is J. A. Blumenthal et al., “Effects of exercise training on older patients with major depression,”
Archives of Internal Medicine
159 (1999).

138
An extremely accessible discussion of the role of diet in combating depression may be found in
The Food Doctor,
by Vicki Edgson and Ian Marber, pages 62 –65.

139
The relationship of fish oil and omega-3 fatty acids to depressive symptoms is described in J. R. Calabrese et al., “Fish Oils and Bipolar Disorder,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
56 (1999).

139
TMS and rTMS have been plagued simultaneously by low efficacy rates and high rates of depressive relapse. For a general introduction to the process, theory, and method of TMS, see Eric Hollander, “TMS,”
CNS Spectrums
2, no. 1 (1997). For more specific academic and research-oriented information, see W. J. Triggs et al., “Effects of left frontal transcranial magnetic stimulation on depressed mood, cognition, and corticomotor threshold,”
Biological Psychiatry
45, no. 11 (1999), and Alvaro Pascual-Leone et al., “Rapid-rate transcranial magnetic stimulation of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in drug-resistant depression,”
Lancet
348 (1996).

140
Norman Rosenthal lays out his views on SAD in his book
Winter Blues.

140
The figures on light levels under artificial and actual light can be adduced from Michael J. Norden’s
Beyond Prozac: Brain Toxic Lifestyles, Natural Antidotes and New Generation Antidepressants,
page 36. Calculations were based on 300 lux for domestic interior lighting; 10,000 lux for new light boxes; and 100,000 lux for a sunny day.

140
The literature on EMDR is spotty, but the best book on the subject as it relates to depression is
Extending EMDR,
edited by Philip Manfield.

141
My treatments in Sedona were at the Enchantment Resort.

142
Callahan’s interesting ideas appear, summarized, in Fred Gallo’s
Energy Psychology.
For Callahan’s discussion of his techniques in reference to trauma, see Roger J. Callahan and Joanne Callahan,
Stop the Nightmares of Trauma:
Thought Field Therapy.
I am not persuaded that his work has real clinical significance, though his modes of thinking are useful to people practicing more conventional therapies.

142
The passage from Kurt Hahn is from
Readings from the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School,
page 71, a wonderful commonplace book published by Hurricane Island Outward Bound and sold through its store, the School Locker.

144
Michael Yapko has written an impressive and helpful monograph on the subject of hypnosis and mood disorders entitled
Hypnosis and the Treatment of Depression.

144
For theories of sleep and depression, see the work of Michael Thase at the University of Pittsburgh and David Dingle of the University of Pennsylvania. Thomas Wehr at the NIMH is also an expert in the field. The description of altered sleep phases comes from a number of sources, both printed and verbal. See Thomas Wehr, “Phase Advance of the Circadian Sleep-Wake Cycle as an Antidepressant,”
Science
206 (1979); his “Reply to Healy, D., Waterhouse, J. M.: The circadian system and affective disorders: Clocks or rhythms,”
Chronobiology International
7 (1990); his “Improvement of Depression and Triggering of Mania by Sleep Deprivation,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
267, no. 4 (1992); and M. Berger et al., “Sleep deprivation combined with consecutive sleep phase advance as fast-acting therapy in depression,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
154, no. 6 (1997). For more on this topic, see also the review chapter entitled “Biological Processes in Depression: An Updated Review and Integration,” by Michael Thase and Robert Howland in
The Handbook of Depression,
edited by E. Edward Beckham and William Leber, pages 213 –79.

144
The quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald comes from
The Crack-Up,
page 75. I thank the ever-vigilant Claudia Swan for suggesting this passage.

146
On arctic resignation, see A. S. Blix’s material in
Symposium on Living in the Cold,
edited by André Malan and Bernard Canguilhem.

146
There is a vast literature on Saint-John’s-wort, most of it repetitive, some of it sensationalist, and much of it goopy. I have drawn here on Norman Rosenthal’s book
St. John’s Wort.
The information regarding hypericum and interleukin-6 was taken from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s Web site at
www.nccam.nih.gov/nccam/fcp/factsheets/stjohns wort/stjohnswort.htm
.

147
I find Andrew Weil’s writing intensely annoying and cannot recommend any of it. His views on these subjects are nicely summed up in Jonathan Zuess’s
The Natural Prozac Program,
pages 66–67.

147
Dr. Thomas Brown of Tulane University has objected to Saint-John’s-wort as “touted somewhat illogically by many as natural and therefore safe.” See Thomas Brown, “Acute St. John’s Wort Toxicity,”
American Journal of Emergency Medicine
18, no. 2 (2000). Like other antidepressants, the plant has triggered episodes of acute mania. See Andrew Nierenberg et al., “Mania Associated with St. John’s Wort,”
Biological Psychiatry
46 (1999). There is evidence that the plant may cause skin sensitivities at high dosages in cows and sheep. See O. S. Araya and E. J. Ford, “An investigation of the type of photosensitization caused by the ingestion of St. John’s Wort (
Hypericum perforatum
) by calves,”
Journal of Comprehensive Pathology
91, no. 1 (1981).

147
For information about Saint-John’s-wort and drug interactions, see the NIMH’s Web site at
www.nimh.nih.gov/events/stjohnwort.cfm
. A recent article also
reviews the current data on the subject; see A. Fugh-Berman, “Herb-drug interactions,”
Lancet
355, no. 9198 (2000).

147
The catalog of drugs whose efficacy is reduced when they are taken with Saint-John’s-wort is from
Consumer Reports,
“Emotional ‘Asprin’?” December 2000, pages 60 –63.

147
For controlled studies of S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe), see G. M. Bressa, “S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAMe) as antidepressant: Meta-analysis of clinical studies,”
Acta Neurologica Scandinavica
89, suppl. 154 (1994).

148
The tendency of SAMe to precipitate mania is described in
Consumer Reports,
“Emotional ‘Asprin’?” December 2000, pages 60–63.

148
The information about SAMe and animal neurotransmitter levels may be found in Richard Brown et al.,
Stop Depression Now,
pages 74–75.

148
The connection between SAMe and methylation is proposed in Joseph Lipinski et al., “Open Trial of S-adenosylmethionine for Treatment of Depression,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
143, no. 3 (1984
).

148
The figure on annual American expenditure on acupuncture may be found on the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s Web site at
www.nccam.nih.gov/nccam/fcp/factsheets/acupuncture/acupuncture.htm
.

149
Claudia Weaver’s homeopathic treatments were prescribed and administered by Pami Singh.

158
Hellinger’s seminal book is
Love’s Hidden Symmetry.
Reinhard Lier runs the Linderhof Therapy Center in Bavaria, which is where he conducts most of his practice. Reinhard Lier’s visit to America was arranged by Regine Olsen.