Combining a scholar's care and thoroughness with searing personal insight, David A. Karp brings the private experience of depression into sharp relief, drawing on a remarkable series of intimate interviews with fifty depressed men and women. By turns poignant, disturbing, mordantly funny, and wise, Karp's interviews cause us to marvel at the courage of depressed people in dealing with extraordinary and debilitating pain. We hear what depression feels like, what it means to receive an "official" clinical diagnosis, and what depressed persons think of the battalion of mental health experts--doctors, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and therapists--employed to help them. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their mid-sixties, the people Karp profiles reflect on their working lives, career aspirations, and intimate relationships, and confide strategies for overcoming paralyzing episodes of hopelessness. Throughout, Karp probes the myriad ways society contributes to widespread alienation and emotional exhaustion. In a new and extensive introduction since the original publication of Speaking of Sadness twenty years ago, Karp evaluates the state of and social movements for the depression experience. He traces his personal depression journey along with the reception of his readers since the book's original publication. In addition, he offers a clear perspective on the consequences of wholesale medicalization permeating cultural treatment of depression, and calls for a movement to listen to and to voice the experiences of the marginalized. Speaking of Sadness remains distinctive in its dedication to recounting stories and discovering clear patterns in them. Karp pierces through the terrifying isolation of depression to uncover the connections linking the depressed as they undertake their personal journeys through this very private hell. This book will bring new understanding to professionals seeking to see the world as their clients do, and provide vivid insights and renewed empathy to anyone who cares for someone living with the cruel unpredictability of depression.

Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness, Updated and Expanded Edition

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Karp, David A.

Mental Health

Oxford University Press

"Even though depression has periodically made me feel that my life was not worth living, has created havoc in my family, and sometimes made the work of teaching and writing seem impossible," writes David Karp, "by some standards, I have been fortunate." Indeed, depression can be devastating, leading to family breakups, loss of employment, even suicide. And it is a national problem, with some ten to fifteen million Americans suffering from it, and the number is growing. In Speaking of Sadness, Karp captures the human face of this widespread affliction, as he illuminates his experience and that of others in a candid, searching work. Combining a scholar's care and thoroughness with searing personal insight, Karp brings the private experience of depression into sharp relief, drawing on a remarkable series of intimate interviews with fifty depressed men and women. By turns poignant, disturbing, mordantly funny, and wise, Karp's interviews cause us to marvel at the courage of depressed people in dealing with extraordinary and debilitating pain. We hear what depression feels like, what it means to receive an "official" clinical diagnosis, and what depressed persons think of the battalion of mental health experts--doctors, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and therapists--employed to help them. We learn the personal significance that patients attach to beginning a prescribed daily drug regimen, and their ongoing struggle to make sense of biochemical explanations and metaphors of depression as a disease. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their mid-sixties, the people Karp profiles reflect on their working lives and career aspirations, and confide strategies for overcoming paralyzing episodes of hopelessness. They reveal how depression affects their intimate relationships, and, in a separate chapter, spouses, children, parents, and friends provide their own often-overlooked point of view. Throughout, Karp probes the myriad ways society contributes to widespread alienation and emotional exhaustion. Speaking of Sadness is an important book that pierces through the terrifying isolation of depression to uncover the connections linking the depressed as they undertake their personal journeys through this very private hell. It will bring new understanding to professionals seeking to see the world as their clients do, and provide vivid insights and renewed empathy to anyone who cares for someone living with the cruel unpredictability of depression.

Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness

Parenting & Relationships

"Even though depression has periodically made me feel that my life was not worth living, has created havoc in my family, and sometimes made the work of teaching and writing seem impossible," writes David Karp, "by some standards, I have been fortunate." Indeed, depression can be devastating, leading to family breakups, loss of employment, even suicide. And it is a national problem, with some ten to fifteen million Americans suffering from it, and the number is growing. In Speaking of Sadness, Karp captures the human face of this widespread affliction, as he illuminates his experience and that of others in a candid, searching work. Combining a scholar's care and thoroughness with searing personal insight, Karp brings the private experience of depression into sharp relief, drawing on a remarkable series of intimate interviews with fifty depressed men and women. By turns poignant, disturbing, mordantly funny, and wise, Karp's interviews cause us to marvel at the courage of depressed people in dealing with extraordinary and debilitating pain. We hear what depression feels like, what it means to receive an "official" clinical diagnosis, and what depressed persons think of the battalion of mental health experts--doctors, nurses, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and therapists--employed to help them. We learn the personal significance that patients attach to beginning a prescribed daily drug regimen, and their ongoing struggle to make sense of biochemical explanations and metaphors of depression as a disease. Ranging in age from their early twenties to their mid-sixties, the people Karp profiles reflect on their working lives and career aspirations, and confide strategies for overcoming paralyzing episodes of hopelessness. They reveal how depression affects their intimate relationships, and, in a separate chapter, spouses, children, parents, and friends provide their own often-overlooked point of view. Throughout, Karp probes the myriad ways society contributes to widespread alienation and emotional exhaustion. Speaking of Sadness is an important book that pierces through the terrifying isolation of depression to uncover the connections linking the depressed as they undertake their personal journeys through this very private hell. It will bring new understanding to professionals seeking to see the world as their clients do, and provide vivid insights and renewed empathy to anyone who cares for someone living with the cruel unpredictability of depression.

The Burden of Sympathy: How Families Cope With Mental Illness

What are the limits of sympathy in dealing with another person's troubles? Where do we draw the line between caring for a loved one, and being swallowed up emotionally by the obligation to do so? Quite simply, what do we owe each other? In this vivid and thoughtful study, David Karp chronicles the experiences of the family members of the mentally ill, and how they draw "boundaries of sympathy" to avoid being engulfed by the day-to-day suffering of a loved one. Working from sixty extensive interviews, the author reveals striking similarities in the experiences of caregivers: the feelings of shame, fear, guilt and powerlessness in the face of a socially stigmatized illness; the frustration of navigating the complex network of bureaucracies that govern the mental health system; and most of all, the difficulty negotiating an "appropriate" level of involvement with the mentally ill loved one while maintaining enough distance for personal health. Throughout the narratives, Karp sensitively explores the overarching question of how people strike an equilibrium between reason and emotion, between head and heart, when caring for a catastrophically ill person. The Burden of Sympathy concludes with a critical look at what it means to be a moral and caring person at the turn of the century in America, when powerful cultural messages spell out two contradictory imperatives: pursue personal fulfillment at any cost and care for the family at any cost. An insightful, deeply caring look at mental illness and at the larger picture of contemporary values, The Burden of Sympathy is required reading for caregivers of all kinds, and for anyone seeking broader understanding of human responsibility in the postmodern world.

Being Urban

Being Urban examines the dynamic interplay between what theoretical perceptions tell us about urban life and how ordinary people interpret and respond to the actual experience of living in cities. A major focus of inquiry is the strategies people use to create community in an environment where, many theorists believe, only alienation and progressive disintegration are possible. In the second edition of this important work, the authors have expanded their commitment to interdisciplinary perspectives and have also included chapters on significant topics that have been largely neglected in urban sociology.Part I provides a review of the themes of urban sociology developed by nineteenth-century classic theorists and early American social scientists. In Part II, the authors look at selected aspects of everyday city life, including the bases of community, the primacy of social interaction for an understanding of urban life, and conditions that produce the breakdown of urban tolerance for diversity of cultures and lifestyles. A new chapter in Part II studies women's experiences in cities. Part III explores institutional structures of urban life and broad patterns of cultural change, including a fascinating chapter on the distribution of power, stratification, and class structure in cities. Included in Part III is another new chapter, analyzing the role of sports in urban life. The final chapter discusses urban life in the postindustrial era, and the demographic, cultural, and historical factors that lie behind the ongoing transformation of American cities. This new edition offers a balanced treatment that avoids the anti-urban bias characteristic of much that has been written on the subject. Being Urban is appropriate for professionals and academics concerned with urban life, as well as for courses in urban sociology.

Politics & Social Sciences

Yoels, William C.

Stone, Gladys

Social Sciences

Praeger

Being Urban examines the dynamic interplay between what theoretical perceptions tell us about urban life and how ordinary people interpret and respond to the actual experience of living in cities. A major focus of inquiry is the strategies people use to create community in an environment where, many theorists believe, only alienation and progressive disintegration are possible. In the second edition of this important work, the authors have expanded their commitment to interdisciplinary perspectives and have also included chapters on significant topics that have been largely neglected in urban sociology.
Part I provides a review of the themes of urban sociology developed by nineteenth-century classic theorists and early American social scientists. In Part II, the authors look at selected aspects of everyday city life, including the bases of community, the primacy of social interaction for an understanding of urban life, and conditions that produce the breakdown of urban tolerance for diversity of cultures and lifestyles. A new chapter in Part II studies women's experiences in cities. Part III explores institutional structures of urban life and broad patterns of cultural change, including a fascinating chapter on the distribution of power, stratification, and class structure in cities. Included in Part III is another new chapter, analyzing the role of sports in urban life. The final chapter discusses urban life in the postindustrial era, and the demographic, cultural, and historical factors that lie behind the ongoing transformation of American cities. This new edition offers a balanced treatment that avoids the anti-urban bias characteristic of much that has been written on the subject. Being Urban is appropriate for professionals and academics concerned with urban life, as well as for courses in urban sociology.

Symbols, Selves, and Society: Understanding Interaction

Sociology

Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins

Book by Clair, Jeffrey Michael, Karp, David A., Yoels, William C.

Experiencing the Life Cycle: A Social Psychology of Aging

Clair, Jeffrey Michael

Charles C. Thomas Pub Ltd

The Research Imagination: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

The idea that science is a blueprint for research, and imagination gives research its life and purpose inspired this comprehensive explanation of research methodology. The authors' decades of experience have revealed that research is a craft requiring judgment and creativity, not simply memorization and application of the rules of science. This book covers a wide variety of data-collection techniques, but presents them as reinforcing, rather than competing with one another, thus striking a balance between qualitative and quantitative methods and proving an essential resource for instructors and students of sociology.

Gray, Paul S.

Williamson, John B.

Dalphin, John R.

Cambridge University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Karp, David A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Karp, David A.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Karp, David A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness, Updated and Expanded Edition

Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness

Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness

The Burden of Sympathy: How Families Cope With Mental Illness

The Burden of Sympathy: How Families Cope With Mental Illness

Being Urban

Being Urban

Symbols, Selves, and Society: Understanding Interaction

Experiencing the Life Cycle: A Social Psychology of Aging

The Research Imagination: An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methods