Is Sadness a Disease?
Physicians throughout history have recognized that the symptoms of normal sadness and depressive disorder were similar. But it has only been in the last 30 years that diagnostic criteria stopped distinguishing between the two conditions altogether, resulting in huge profits for the mental health profession and pharmaceutical companies.
NEW YORK – Sadness is one of the small number of human emotions that have been recognized in all societies and in all time periods. Some of the earliest known epics, such as The Iliad and Gilgamesh , feature protagonists’ intense sadness after the loss of close comrades. Likewise, anthropological work across a great range of societies clearly describes emotions of sadness that develop in response to frustration in love, humiliation by rivals, or the inability to achieve valued cultural goals.
NEW YORK – Sadness is one of the small number of human emotions that have been recognized in all societies and in all time periods. Some of the earliest known epics, such as The Iliad and Gilgamesh , feature protagonists’ intense sadness after the loss of close comrades. Likewise, anthropological work across a great range of societies clearly describes emotions of sadness that develop in response to frustration in love, humiliation by rivals, or the inability to achieve valued cultural goals.