CAWANGAN KELANTAN

ENGLISH FOR CRITICAL ACADEMIC READING

(ELC501)

FACULTY OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

BACHELOR OF OFFICE SYSTEM MANAGEMENT (Hons)
OCTOBER 2020 – FEBRUARY 2021

“WRITTEN ARTICLE ANALYSIS (25%)”

PREPARED BY:
SITI FARRAH AQILAH BINTI 2020628496
MAZLAN
SITI HAA’ILAH BINTI AZHAR 2020462206

GROUP:
D1BA2322B

PREPARE FOR:
NUR AIN BINTI ABDUL MALEK

SUBMISSION DATE:
20 JANUARY 2021
 Title of Article Analysed: Depression Is A Disease of Loneliness

Analysis

In the Article “Depression is a Disease of Loneliness” the author Andrew Solomon deals with
the issue of whether a lack of friend can suck someone into solitude. His contention that
sharing the language of friendship could assist with facilitating the pain. The author’s purpose
of writing this article is to the general public that depression is a disease of loneliness. In this
article, type of tone he uses throughout this article is subjective since it is biased where the
author only focus on the depression is disease of loneliness. The tone used is formal and
direct where the author provides factual data based on studies and research done that can be
proven rather than giving his own opinion.

The author uses several types of supporting detail which is examples, illustrations,
definitions, statistics, research findings, observations, personal experiences and historical
data. The author provides studies that support and is directly related to the topic. The author
shows consistency in his writing where he provides multiple supporting details about the
topic depression is a disease of loneliness. As in first paragraph, In an era in which Facebook
has made “friend” into a verb, we often confuse the ambient intimacy of websites with the
authentic intimacy that comes with sharing your life’s challenges with someone who cares –
who will be sad because you are sad, happy because you feel joy, worried if you are unwell,
reassuring if you are hopeless. We are imprisoned even in crowded cities and at noisy parties.

Illustrations. For some, friendship has become a vocabulary as obscure as Sanskrit. Lack of
emotional fluency may cause depression; it may exacerbate it; it may cast a shadow over
recovery. But there are ways to help people who want friendships to learn the language of
affection. Parents and schools can teach children productive ways to engage.

Definitions. Depression is a disease of loneliness. Many untreated depressives lack friends

because it saps the vitality that friendship requires and immures its victims in an impenetrable
sheath, making it hard for them to speak or hear words of comfort.

Statistics. One in 10 people in the UK said they had no friends and one in five reported
feeling unloved in the fortnight preceding the survey.

Research findings. Prof Simon Wessely, the incoming president of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists, has indicated that only one-third of people with mental health issues in the UK
are receiving treatment of any kind, which means that the number receiving effective
treatment must be much smaller. It has been suggested that treating mentally ill people is
expensive, and that in the current economic climate, funds cannot readily be found for such
treatment. But not treating the depressed is ultimately more expensive than treating them.

Observations. Literature, film, poetry, music and art can show what relatedness looks like.
For those who are too far along for such high-minded modelling, psychotherapy can help
translate the methods of friendship’s alarming, vanished language. Over and over again I
have heard tones of astonishment as social relations are built – often starting with a therapist.
Many of us are more alone than we need to be, living in gratuitous exile.

Personal experiences. Those who have friends frequently go through life unaware that
others do not, because those others are so isolated as to be socially invisible. Because I have
written about depression, some such people have reached out to me for advice, describing its
universal bleakness and the bleaker reality of suffering without the cushion of love. “I was
extremely unhappy, and I didn’t feel I could tell anyone,” a woman named Claudia Weaver
told me. “I avoided the world.”

Historical data. “Naked and alone we came into exile,” wrote the American novelist Thomas
Wolfe in his 1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel. “In her dark womb we did not know our
mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh, we come into the unspeakable and
incommunicable prison of this earth … Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”

Conclusion made through this article are where people who cannot function end up on the
dole; parents may not be able to take care of their children; men and women too depressed to
sustain their physical health could develop serious conditions that cost the NHS a great deal.
Love is helpful, not because it ameliorates the symptoms of depression, but because it gives
people evidence that life may be worth living if they can only get better. Some friendless
people may be close to their parents or children rather than to extrafamilial friends, or they
may be more interested in things or ideas than in other people. Creating a social system that
shoehorns people into relationships or friendships is not likely to solve the ever-widening
depression crisis. But there are ways to help people who want friendships to learn the
language of affection.

(809 words)
Analysed Article

A lack of friends can suck someone into solitude – sharing the language of affection could
help to ease the pain.

“Naked and alone we came into exile,” wrote the American novelist Thomas Wolfe in his
1929 novel Look Homeward, Angel. “In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face;
from the prison of her flesh, we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of
this earth … Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”

A study published by the relationship charity Relate would suggest that Wolfe was on to
something. One in 10 people in the UK said they had no friends and one in five reported
feeling unloved in the fortnight preceding the survey.

Those who have friends frequently go through life unaware that others do not, because those
others are so isolated as to be socially invisible. Because I have written about depression,
some such people have reached out to me for advice, describing its universal bleakness and
the bleaker reality of suffering without the cushion of love. “I was extremely unhappy and I
didn’t feel I could tell anyone,” a woman named Claudia Weaver told me. “I avoided the
world.”

In an era in which Facebook has made “friend” into a verb, we often confuse the ambient
intimacy of websites with the authentic intimacy that comes with sharing your life’s
challenges with someone who cares – who will be sad because you are sad, happy because
you feel joy, worried if you are unwell, reassuring if you are hopeless. We are imprisoned
even in crowded cities and at noisy parties.

Prof Simon Wessely, the incoming president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has
indicated that only one-third of people with mental health issues in the UK are receiving
treatment of any kind, which means that the number receiving effective treatment must be
much smaller. It has been suggested that treating mentally ill people is expensive, and that in
the current economic climate, funds cannot readily be found for such treatment. But not
treating the depressed is ultimately more expensive than treating them. People who cannot
function end up on the dole; parents may not be able to take care of their children; men and
women too depressed to sustain their physical health could develop serious conditions that
cost the NHS a great deal. Such neglect would never be tolerated in response to a physical
illness.
Depression is a disease of loneliness. Many untreated depressives lack friends because it saps
the vitality that friendship requires and immures its victims in an impenetrable sheath,
making it hard for them to speak or hear words of comfort. Worldly success does little to
assuage that agony, as Robin Williams’ suicide this week makes clear. Love – both expressed
and received – is helpful, not because it ameliorates the symptoms of depression (it does not),
but because it gives people evidence that life may be worth living if they can only get better.
It gives them a place to admit to their illness, and admitting it is the first step toward
resolving it.

It would be arrogant for people with friends to pity those without. Some friendless people
may be close to their parents or children rather than to extrafamilial friends, or they may be
more interested in things or ideas than in other people. The Relate research suggests that
married people are mostly happier than the unmarried, but marriage is not right for everyone.
Creating a social system that shoehorns people into relationships or friendships they don’t
want– as the Victorians sometimes tried to do in the name of good fellowship, or the Soviets
in the name of communism – is not likely to solve the ever-widening depression crisis.
Insisting to people who don’t want companionship that they’d be happier if they were less
lonely is not a useful intervention.

Many people, however, are desperate for love, but don’t know how to go about finding it,
disabled by depression’s tidal pull toward seclusion. Loneliness will not be fixed by
medication, though pills may instigate the stability to open up to friendship’s liabilities:
potential rejection, exhausting demands, the need for self-sacrifice.

For some, friendship has become a vocabulary as obscure as Sanskrit. Lack of emotional
fluency may cause depression; it may exacerbate it; it may cast a shadow over recovery. But
there are ways to help people who want friendships to learn the language of affection. Parents
and schools can teach children productive ways to engage.

Literature, film, poetry, music and art can show what relatedness looks like. For those who
are too far along for such high-minded modelling, psychotherapy can help translate the
methods of friendship’s alarming, vanished language. Over and over again I have heard tones
of astonishment as social relations are built – often starting with a therapist. Many of us are
more alone than we need to be, living in gratuitous exile. Friendship is an impulse encoded
deep within us, but it is also a skill, and skills can be both taught and learned.