Angst: Origins of Anxiety and Depression

Author: Kahn, Jeffrey P.Edition: 1Binding: Kindle EditionFormat: Kindle eBookNumber Of Pages: 311Release Date: 22-10-2012Details: Anxiety and Depressive Subtypes Evolved from Primal Altruistic InstinctsSome twenty percent of us are afflicted with common anxiety and depressive disorders--not just brief bouts of nervousness or sorrow, but painful dysfunctions without obvious benefit. Why do so many people suffer from angst? In this path-breaking volume, engagingly written for the general public, psychiatrist Jeffrey Kahn reveals that angst ultimately results from our transformation, over tens of thousands of years, from biologically shaped, almost herd-like prehistoric tribes, to rational and independent individuals in modern civilization. Kahn looks at five basic types of modern-day angst--Panic Anxiety, Social Anxiety, OCD, Atypical Depression, and Melancholic Depression--and shows how each derives from primeval social instincts that once helped our ancestors survive. For instance