Mark Vernon writes interestingly about modern isolation and depression: “The ‘English Malady’ – in short, depression – emerged as an epidemic of melancholy around 1600. Its genesis was intimately connected to the emergence of the self as an isolated, if self-possessed, individual (indeed, ‘self’ as a noun, as opposed to a reflexive word, first came into use about the same time)”.

One of the reasons I remain suspicious of evangelical theology – too much ‘self’.