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Growing from Depression cover

What if depression were a blessing as well as a curse? This is a book about how depression can have benefits as well as costs, and how to reap those benefits while making yourself feel better—better, in fact, than ever before.

🏆 Semi-finalist, the BookLife Prize

🏆 Highly Commended, the BMA Book Awards

A comprehensive, sympathetic, and thought-provoking guide for those who want to explore their depression in more depth. —The British Journal of Psychiatry

This book brings understanding and encourages independent solutions. It is remarkable in its shortness and practicality. —The British Medical Association Book Awards

★★★★★ I have read most of Dr. Neel Burton’s books and have enjoyed them immensely … All in all, I found this to be a very insightful and engaging book on depression. —Jamie Bee, Amazon.com Top 50 Reviewer

Grab your copy now for a new and powerful way of looking at depression.

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In a world without strong people, there cannot be strong leaders.

In 1885, Nietzsche’s sister Elisabeth married Bernhard Förster, a high school teacher turned German nationalist and rabid antisemite. Nietzsche so disapproved that he did not attend the wedding.

In 1886, Förster and Elisabeth left for Paraguay with fourteen German families to establish a vegetarian and teetotal colony, Nueva Germania, that admitted only “racially pure” Germans. While Elisabeth played the princess, the heavily indebted Förster drank heavily and became depressed. In 1889, he committed suicide in a hotel room in San Bernardino.

Nietzsche looked upon nationalism and democracy as the successors of the slave morality of Christianity. Instead, he championed the ideal of the “good European”, a cosmopolitan, supra-national individual who transcends petty national and religious prejudices and strives to unite Europe through a new, higher cultural synthesis. In 1886, the year that Elisabeth left for Paraguay, he wrote to his mother from the Swiss Alps, “Even if I should be a bad German, I am at all events a very good European.”

Beyond Good and Evil

In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, an antisemite who had been publishing antisemitic literature and propaganda while neglecting Nietzsche’s work.

In that year, Nietzsche also published a new work, Beyond Good and Evil (1886), which consists of 296 aphorisms organised into nine chapters. As the title suggests, this is not a work of normative ethics (what is good and evil) but of meta-ethics (what is meant by “good” and “evil”).

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche portrays the life-denying Western religion, morality, and philosophy as rooted in a “herd mentality”, and calls for the abandonment of binary morality. After the death of God, there can no longer be a universal perspective. Therefore, there can no longer be an objective truth. Although philosophical systems purport to be objective, they are no more than the “involuntary and unconscious memoirs” of their prejudiced authors. “Truth” is no more than “the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live”.

Master vs Slave Morality

Beyond Good and Evil also introduces the dichotomy between master morality and slave morality. Slave morality is often confused with herd mentality, but can be understood more precisely as a component and expression of herd mentality. If slave morality arises out of the resentment-driven inversion of values created by the weak in revenge against the strong, herd mentality is the broader mediocrity that enforces conformity and suppresses individuality.

For Nietzsche, modern society represents the triumph of Judeo-Christian slave morality over the older Greco-Roman master morality. Master morality originates in the strong, and is marked by values such as pride, nobility, courage, truthfulness, health, creativity, and joy. Slave morality, on the other hand, is the envious and vengeful reaction of the mild and mediocre to the oppression of the masters, to create an inverted morality by turning their weakness into virtue and the values of the masters into vice.

Thus, slave morality is marked by values such as humility, meekness, conformity, patience, compassion, and pity. Christianity is called the religion of pity, which deprives us of strength and makes suffering contagious. In master morality, the good is whatever is good for the masters; in slave morality, it is whatever constrains and emasculates the masters. By pretending that humility and docility are a moral choice, slave morality manufactures an ideal out of impotence and subjugation. Thus, pride becomes a vice or sin, humility is elevated into a supreme virtue, and the son of God washes the feet of his disciples and allows himself to be crucified like a common criminal.

What This Means for Us

Slave morality is a cynical and pessimistic inverse morality that involves the systematic subversion of the old, natural master morality. It seeks not to transcend master morality, but, through “priestly vindictiveness”, to emasculate and enslave the strong by persuading them that their strength is an evil. Democracy, with its fixation on equality, is in fact the heir to Christianity, even if most democrats would rather trace their lineage to Ancient Athens.

But for all that, the old Greco-Roman morality, because it reflects reality and the natural impulse, cannot be vanquished, and vies with the inverted Judeo-Christian morality. Modern man is confused because he has constantly to juggle their contradictions, while himself being neither Christian nor Ancient but drifting in an ill-defined no-man’s land.

For Nietzsche, “a people is a detour of nature to get to six or seven great men.” Therefore, a good and healthy aristocracy should not feel “that it is a function but rather an essence and highest justification”. If, on the other hand, we took slave morality and the herd mentality to their ultimate extravagance, “there would be no commanders or independent men at all…”

After the publication of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche wintered in Nice. In February 1887, a powerful earthquake shook the Ligurian coast, killing over two thousand people. Nietzsche did not feel fear, but a sense of ironic detachment: the earth had shaken, but his book had failed to achieve his intended “earthquake of ideas”.

Neel Burton is author of The German Greeks: German Philosophy and the German Philosophers.

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Nietzsche’s prophetic warning to the modern world.

In 1882, Nietzsche entered into a love triangle with the beautiful Lou Salomé and their friend Paul Rée. On 5 November, in In 1882, Nietzsche entered into a love triangle with the beautiful Lou Salomé and their friend Paul Rée. On Nov. 5, in Leipzig, Salomé and Rée suddenly vanished from his life, without word or trace. He knew not where, nor why. Some days later, when what had happened had sunk in, he confided to his friend Franz Overbeck, “So I really am going into utter solitude.” He never saw Salomé or Rée again.

Naturally, Nietzsche’s already fragile health suffered. He began taking heavy doses of chloral hydrate and opium. In mid-December, he sent out letters mentioning overdoses and suicide. On Christmas Day, he wrote to Overbeck: “This last morsel of life was the hardest I have yet had to chew… Unless I discover the alchemical trick of turning this muck into gold, I am lost.”

Fortunately, Nietzsche did discover the alchemical trick, and the result was his masterpiece, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It’s his most famous work, and he insisted that everything he wrote afterward was mere commentary on its themes. In his autobiography, Ecce Homo, he goes so far as to call Thus Spoke Zarathustra the greatest gift humanity has ever received.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is written as a stylised, biblical, and poetic narrative about a prophet, Zarathustra, who isolates himself in the mountains with his animals, a snake and an eagle. After ten years of solitude, he comes down to share his wisdom with humanity, in the form of speeches, parables, and aphorisms. When the masses laugh at him, he recruits an elite band of followers.

But he remains ambivalent about having followers: “You are my believers—but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to little.” He instructs his followers to leave him and become free thinkers: “I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only then… will I return to you.”

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaims the death of God and, consequently, the inability of conventional religion and morality to provide modern man with structure and meaning. Instead, the prophet Zarathustra advocates a radical, earthly, and life-affirming philosophy. In so doing, Zarathustra introduces some of Nietzsche’s most famous themes, including the Übermensch and Last Man.

The Übermensch

Zarathustra exhorts his followers to remain faithful to the earth. Instead of harbouring otherworldly hopes, they should embrace life as it is and take responsibility for creating their own values. The meaning of the earth is the Übermensch, a higher, self-overcoming type of human that is yet to exist.

Humanity is not an end, but a bridge between its animal past and its Übermensch future. Humanity is a “rope over an abyss”—”a dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and standing still”—that most people fail to cross, falling instead into nihilism, that is, into despondency and mediocrity.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end in himself: what can be loved in man is that he is a going over and a going under.

Although the Übermensch is a future concept—not even Zarathustra is an Übermensch—in later works Nietzsche discusses certain “higher men” who approached the ideal, like Julius Caesar, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, Goethe, and Beethoven. The Übermensch rises above the conventional morality of the herd to become a law unto himself.

The Last Man

The antithesis of the Übermensch is the Last Man, a mediocre, apathetic, comfort-seeking creature who fears risk and struggle and chooses security over greatness. Without the drive to create or achieve, the Last Man focuses only on “little pleasures for the day and little pleasures for the night” while maintaining a strict regard for his health.

Have you noticed how, when people are overwhelmed, they start blinking? Nietzsche famously describes the Last Man as “blinking”—because his vision of humanity is so small.

Last Men, who are in the overwhelming majority, arrange things so that everyone is like them, so that no one rises, or even can rise, above the herd, so that no one can dare to dream or risk having an original thought. Any deviation from the norm is interpreted as a form of madness.

Zarathustra challenges the complacency of the herd: “Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness by which you might be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Übermensch. He is this lightning, he is this madness.”

Wo ist der Blitz, der euch mit seiner Zunge lecke? Wo ist der Wahnsinn, der mit euch ausgeimpft werden müsste? Seht, ich lehre euch den Übermenschen: er ist dieser Blitz, er ist dieser Wahnsinn.

Ironically, the crowd does not heed the warning, but cheers and demands that Zarathustra make them into these Last Men.

Nietzsche’s Last Man marks the end of human evolution and ambition. It is a prophetic warning of what humanity could become if it settles for nothing higher than material wealth, risk-aversion, technological pacification, and a culture of feeling “safe and happy”—in one word, for mediocrity.

Nietzsche was writing in 1893. Since then, it has become ever more difficult to be free. Very soon, if not already, it will be impossible to become a person.

Neel Burton is author of The German Greeks: German Philosophy and the German Philosophers.

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The Incarnate Angel, which has been tactfully cropped.

An introduction to the most successful of all ego defences.

Sublimation is considered by many to be the most “mature” or “successful” of all ego defences. Let me give you a few examples.

If a person feels angry with his boss, he may go home and kick the dog—or he might instead go out for a long run. The first instance (kicking the dog) is an example of displacement, the redirection of uncomfortable feelings towards someone or something less important, which is an immature and destructive ego defence. But the second instance (going out for a long run) is an example of sublimation, which can be defined as the channelling of uncomfortable feelings into positive or productive activities.

If someone finds out that she’s been cheated upon, she might fly into a rage and cut up all her partner’s clothes—or she might instead write a poem to explore and express how she feels. And if the poem or poet were one day to be remembered, would that not be the sweetest revenge of all?

A third example of sublimation is the person with sadistic or homicidal urges who joins the military to provide an outlet for these urges, or who, like Justice Wargrave in Agatha Christie’s And Then Ther Were None, becomes a hanging judge who doles out the death penalty to murdered. In the novel’s postscript, a fishing trawler dredges up a bottle just off the Devon coast. The bottle contains the confession of the late Wargrave, in which reveals a lifelong sadistic temperament juxtaposed with a fierce sense of justice. Though he had longed to torture, terrify, and kill, he could not bring himself to harm innocent people. So instead, he became a hanging judged and thrilled at the sight of convicted (and guilty) criminals trembling with fear.

The Case of Leonardo

In a 1910 essay on Leonardo, Sigmund Freud argued that Leonardo was a “sublimated homosexual” who did not act on his sexual desires but rather converted (sublimed) them into an insatiable curiosity and artistic genius.

Leonardo never showed any interest in women and even wrote that heterosexual intercourse disgusted him. He never married but chose instead to surround himself with beautiful young men such as Salai (a nickname meaning “little devil”) and Melzi, who were both included in his last will and testament. In 1476, at the age of 24, he was twice charged with sodomy, even though the charge was common in the Florence of the quattrocento and later dropped for want of witnesses.

As in his life, so in his art: Leonardo sketched many more male than female nudes and paid much more attention to the male genitals. Many of his figures appear androgynous, especially the John the Baptist (c. 1513) who, complete with the long, fine curls of Salai, looks nothing like the biblical cousin of Jesus and everything like Salai or, indeed, Mona Lisa. And if that were not enough, there is also a drawing, The Incarnate Angel, from the school of Leonardo that appears to be a humorous take on the John the Baptist, portraying John/Salai in a state of, shall we say, excitement.

The Last Supper

In the famous Last Supper (c. 1498), Leonardo painted a female figure, often interpreted as Mary Magdalene, in the privileged position to the immediate right of Jesus. But it is generally understood that it was in fact John the Apostle who occupied this position. In the Bible, at John 13:23, it is written (presumably by John himself, or else someone close to John), “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.” And again at John 21:20: “Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?” 

In his Spiritual Friendship (c. 1167), St Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx in the twelfth century, contrasts John with Peter. To Peter, he says, Jesus gave the keys to his kingdom, but to John “he revealed the secrets of his heart”. “Peter… was exposed to action, John was reserved for love.”

Whatever the real relationship between Jesus and John, placing a female figure in the place of John in a painting destined for a monastery seems like something more than poor catechism.

Neel Burton is author of Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception.

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Friedrich Nietzsche in circa 1875.

How Nietzsche channelled a traumatic breakup to write his most famous book.

In March 1882, the writer Paul Rée travelled to Rome to join a community of free spirits. There, he met the 21-year-old Lou Salomé, who was travelling with her mother following the death of her father, Gustav von Salomé, an ennobled Russian general.

Nietzsche rejoined them in April, after three weeks in Messina, Sicily. Nietzsche and Salomé first met, of all places, in the grandeur of St Peter’s Basilica. Nietzsche was captivated by her charm and intelligence, and enjoyed reading to her and Rée from his newly published Gay Science.

Love Triangle

The then 37-year-old Nietzsche asked Rée to deliver a marriage proposal to Salomé, without knowing that Rée had himself proposed to her. Salomé rejected both proposals, suggesting instead that she, Rée, and Nietzsche form a platonic “intellectual trinity” and wander in search of some monastery or other edifice in which to establish a commune of free spirits.

On 5 May, Salomé and Nietzsche ascended Monte Sacro, with its romantic views over Lake Orta and San Giulio Island. Nietzsche described this pilgrimage of sorts as “the most exquisite dream of my life”. Later, he wrote to Salomé, “Back at Orta, I conceived a plan of leading you step by step to the final consequence of my philosophy—you as the first person I took to be fit for this.”

He proposed to her a second time in Lucerne’s Löwengarten. Later that day, they had their photograph taken with the reluctant Rée in a photographer’s shop. This photograph (below), with Salomé brandishing a whip, is almost certainly the most famous picture in all philosophy.

On 5 November, in Leipzig, Salomé and Rée suddenly vanished from his life, without word or trace. He knew not where, or why. Some days later, when what had happened had sunk in, he confided to his friend Franz Overbeck, “So I really am going into utter solitude.” He never saw Salomé or Rée again. After hiding in Leipzig for some days, the pair had made for Berlin.

The most famous picture in philosophy, with Nietzsche, Rée, and Salomé holding a whip.

From Heartbreak to Masterpiece

Naturally, Nietzsche’s already fragile health suffered. He began taking heavy doses of chloral hydrate and opium. In mid-December, he sent letters mentioning overdoses and suicide to Salomé, Rée, and Overbeck. To Overbeck, he wrote: “My whole life has crumbled under my gaze… the barrel of a revolver is for me now a source of relatively pleasant thoughts.”

On Christmas day, he wrote again to Overbeck: “This last morsel of life was the hardest I have yet had to chew… Unless I discover the alchemical trick of turning this muck into gold, I am lost.”

Nietzsche did, of course, find the trick. On 14 February, he posted the manuscript for the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, to his publisher. It’s his most famous work, and he insisted that everything he wrote afterward was mere commentary on its themes. In his autobiography, Ecce Homo, he goes so far as to call it the greatest gift humanity has ever received.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaims the death of God and, consequently, the inability of conventional religion and morality to provide modern man with structure and meaning. Instead, Zarathustra advocates a radical, earthly, and life-affirming philosophy, and introduces some of Nietzsche’s most famous themes: the Superman (Übermensch), the Will to Power, and Eternal Return.

The Ego Defence of Sublimation

Sublimation is considered by many to be the most successful of all defences.

If a person’s partner has just left her for someone else, she might fly into a rage and cut up all his clothes… or she might instead write a poem to express how she feels. The first instance (cutting up all her partner’s clothes) is an example of displacement, the redirection of uncomfortable feelings towards someone or something less important, which is an immature ego defence. But the second instance (writing a poem) is an example of sublimation, the channelling of uncomfortable feelings into positive or productive activities, which is a much more mature ego defence.

And if the poem or poet were one day to be remembered, would that not be the sweetest revenge of all?

Neel Burton is author of The German Greeks: German Philosophy and the German Philosophers.