One of the most intriguing articles on Lincoln I have ever read depicts his struggle with depression and how this illness crafted his presidential capacities. The author of this article, Joshua Wolf Shenk, is also the author of a book I am currently finishing, Lincoln’s Melancholy. After I read the article I had to get my hands on the book that explores this side of Lincoln in detail–it took me 3 years, but better late than never. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to dig around the psychological closets of great men.
An excerpt of the Lincoln’s Great Depression, from The Atlantic:
Lincoln did suffer from what we now call depression, as modern clinicians, using the standard diagnostic criteria, uniformly agree. But this diagnosis is only the beginning of a story about how Lincoln wrestled with mental demons, and where it led him. Diagnosis, after all, seeks to assess a patient at just a moment in time, with the aim of treatment. But Lincoln’s melancholy is part of a whole life story; exploring it can help us see that life more clearly, and discern its lessons. In a sense, what needs “treatment” is our own narrow ideas—of depression as an exclusively medical ailment that must be, and will be, squashed; of therapy as a thing dispensed only by professionals and measured only by a reduction of pain; and finally, of mental trials as a flaw in character and a disqualification for leadership.
[...] With Lincoln we have a man whose depression spurred him, painfully, to examine the core of his soul; whose hard work to stay alive helped him develop crucial skills and capacities, even as his depression lingered hauntingly; and whose inimitable character took great strength from the piercing insights of depression, the creative responses to it, and a spirit of humble determination forged over decades of deep suffering and earnest longing.
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