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Can there be any Redemption for Pop Psychology?

--Judging by this book's popularity/stellar ratings in a genre I have avoided, I was preparing a niche review contrasting this book with bad “pop psych��.
…T���n, I noticed the top review accuses this book of being another bad “pop psych�� book! “Instead he presents another wildly oversimplistic explanation and then claims credit for Figuring It All Out Unlike Those Actual Scientists And Doctors.��
…So, I’ll first unpack the negative review (a useful exercise in salvaging a disagreeable review), then bad “pop psych��, and finally the book.

1) Lost in Communication:
--The top (negative, 1-star) review claims that this book took an obvious claim (depression can have social causes; “no shit��) to build a strawman claim (the understanding and treatment of depression have only focused on chemicals in the brain; “literally nobody thinks that��, “because doctors are not fucking idiots!��).
--It’s always disappointing how messy communication is:
a) I found the author’s reminders of it’s-complicated/there-are-exceptions-including-biochemical-and-genetic/antidepressants-can-be-part-of-helpful-treatments adequate for a popular presentation (and thus even repetitive).
…T��� core of the book is to explore other treatments beyond relying on antidepressants (while listing sources supporting antidepressants, i.e. Kramer’s Listening to Prozac), and the author frequently adds that antidepressants can be a useful addition in treatment, mirroring the reviewer’s coup de grâce: “there's often an antidepressant which will give the person a bit of a boost in conjunction with sorting out other stuff. But Hari doesn't engage with this.��
…T��� changing debates and medical practices (i.e. modern Western; the brief contrasts with non-Western is worth exploring elsewhere) on depression are summarized at the start (ex. Irving Kirsch vs. Peter D. Kramer, DSM diagnostic guidelines, etc.). Healthcare changes (look at how DSM classified homosexuality). This book is not an attack on healthcare professionals, who are limited to their institutions and cannot resolve many wider social issues. The author supports the NHS (UK’s National Health Service) as a cornerstone of social services (“well, of course��).
…Social causes are often systemic so this is not (and cannot be) a cheap self-help book. Interactions between social and biological factors (ex. neuroplasticity, snowballing effect) are indeed complex and covered, once again mirroring the reviewer’s counter “There are levels of cause and effect, and interactions between these levels. Life experience affects brain activity. Brain activity then both creates and affects life experience. The problem with depression is often a feedback loop between life and the brain.��

b) Meanwhile, the reviewer’s reaction: “Well Hari starts by saying that everything I know about depression is wrong, which is a bold claim given that I've lived with it, waxing and waning, for most of my life.��. This is an (ironically) ※��������������������پ����� caricature of a presentation which the reviewer also finds to be mostly obvious (“no shit��). The presentation is clearly for a popular audience and not an academic tome, with all its advantages and limitations.
...Update: for the Guardian article , see my breakdown in Comment #10 below my review. Yet another attempt to critique exaggeration that ends up relying on exaggeration.

2) Bad “Pop Psych��:
a) I ended up dropping a star (from 5, which I try to be very finicky giving as to not dilute gems!) given the advertising hype/spin employed in some of Hari's passages (the major limitation of popular writing, as it seems to be treated as a requirement); this definitely detracts from what is otherwise 5-star content and is a misuse of creative writing.
...My go-to for engaging writing on the topic without shortcuts in nuance is medical doctor/epidemiologist/science writer Ben Goldacre (Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks). Goldacre's collection I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That has numerous articles directly related: "Heroin on Prescription", "Neuro-Realism", "The Least Surrogate Outcome", "The Stigma Gene", "Brain-Imaging Studies Report More Positive Findings Than Their Numbers Can Support. This Is Fishy". Goldacre's medical/research background offer deeper experiences with the realities of "Big Pharma" (whose crimes are more abstract and structural than what is sensationalized by bad media, see later).
...That said, I still think Hari's topic of social addiction is a gem, unlike standard bad “pop psych�� extraordinaire Malcolm Gladwell...

b) Why psychology is a mess and heavily criticized in academia: the difficulties quantifying a social science:
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...plenty of ideological fiends that emerge from this swamp, misusing science's initial reductionist steps of discovery by not re-synthesizing with real-world complexities in making conclusions (esp. considering psychology crosses over so much with social sciences, unlike physical sciences). I'll need to continue reviewing these culprits:
-Jordan B. Peterson: 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
-Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
-Sam Harris: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

c) “because doctors are not fucking idiots!��: if you read Hari more carefully, you’ll see he reviews the fascinating world of for-profit medical trials (referencing meta-research legend John Ioannidis), which are unpacked here:
-I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That (“because, you know, the brain is complex��)
-Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks
-Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients: in particular the numerous ways to rig trial results.
…If you’re actually serious about evidence, you’ll realize “the evidence […] is complicated��. Indeed, legend John Ioannidis himself has gotten into controversies in his interpretations of COVID-19 research:
…Rigidity in evidence-based-medicine paradigm:
...How this applies to COVID research: hierarchy of evidence? Missing social structures? Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19

3) The book:
--Unpacking the bad review helped contextualize this book, so here’s a quick overview:
a) Lost connections with:
...meaningful work (Yes! Political economy is my interest; check out Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values), other people (loneliness, “self-help�� culture)
...meaningful values (intrinsic vs. extrinsic), lack of authenticity from childhood trauma (defensive mechanisms; many references of Gabor Maté (In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; Maté has since broadened the scope in The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture), status/respect (stress of insecure status/subordination), as well as brain changes (neuroplasticity) and gene changes (environmental activation, stigma)
...nature (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants), and hopeful/secure future (another big topic in political economy, esp. Neoliberal cannibalism of Western post-WWII industrial boom, not to mention existential ecological crises)
...You can see how much “N��DZ�������������������� plays into lost social connections, symbolized by Thatcher's “There is no society�� and “There is no alternative��. This also relates with boogeyman Marx's “a������Բ��پ��Dz���.

b) Re-connections with:
...other people, social prescribing (“what’s the matter with you?�� becomes “what matters to you?��), meaningful work, meaningful values, sympathetic joy (vs. envy)/overcome addiction to self (meditation, psychedelics), acknowledge/overcome childhood trauma, and restoring a future.
…T��� last point (restoring a future) is of course a big political economy topic! The author cites Bregman regarding UBI (Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World) which can be a useful conversation-starter for novices (just as The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism popularized the critique of "Neoliberalism"), but many structural economic issues are unaddressed (let's not forget market fundamentalists like Milton Friedman supported variations of UBI, to help dismantle welfare services).
...I much prefer Varoufakis unpacking the structural crises (Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails) and proposing structural alternatives (Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present). In fact, Varoufakis interviews Hari on social alternatives!
...Another excellent pairing, now on the global situation, is Hickel on global inequality (The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions) and on solutions to the existential ecological crises (Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World). Also useful and accessible: Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
...Once again, this cannot be treated as a cheap self-help book; social problems require social solutions. Hari quoting Jiddu Krishnamurti:
“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.��