The United States spent, adjusted for inflation, a quarter trillion dollars on the Apollo project. The most famous of the astronauts who reached the lunar surface, Neil Arm­strong, later suffered such severe depression that he was deposited in a psych ward. I have no doubt that he found that more frightening than his expedition into outer space, and granted how many more people will make the jour­ney to and from despair, it’s surprising that more effort hasn’t been expended understanding the science behind it.

Those who have experienced depression — and I regretfully count myself among that number — will tell you that the most dreadful thing about it is simply the fear that it will continue. However bearable a week or an hour of it may be, the presentiment that it could go on indefinitely is like mustard gas. On dry land you feel you are about to drown.

One useful take on the subject comes from Lisa Miller, a psychology professor at Teachers College, Columbia Univer­sity, and the author of the 2015 best seller The Spiritual Child: The New Science on Parenting for Health and Lifelong Thriving. That book focused on research demonstrating that rates of psycho­pathology in adolescents are tremendously diminished through religious attachment. It turns out that teens actively involved in a church, temple, or mosque are less likely to drop out of school, self-harm, or suffer from despair. And if the goal is to prevent out-of-wedlock childbirth, it seems that religion is a powerful prophylactic.

In her new book, The Awakened Brain, Miller looks at recent neuroscience dealing with brain health and plasticity. This provides her with an opportunity to inform the public about some rather startling examples of improvement seen on the neural MRI scans of people who say that they are spiritually engaged. In addition, she examines a number of the current theories about the etiology of depression: how it starts and why it can become chronic.

These are not her only concerns. Rather, Miller frequently switches to accounts of her own battle with depression. Twenty-five years ago it arose when she and her husband were failing in their efforts to conceive a child. This experience gives the book an added dimension: a window through which those unfamiliar with depression can understand it as something palpable — at once deadening and frighteningly alive.

Insofar as the government has sponsored research on the subject, that re­search has focused on drugs. Lauded discoveries came in waves. In the early 1960s, researchers promoted hallu­cinogens. But subsequent investigation showed that while LSD could “heal” an occasional traumatized patient, it also increased the risk of suicidal episodes — even in seemingly healthy people. As alongside this finding there arose fears among the general public of the advent of the hippie subculture, the government promptly halted its research funding. Then, near the end of the decade, in­terest shifted towards two new families of “breakthrough” pharmaceuticals: mono­amine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors and tricyclic antidepressants. The first class was eventually shunned when it was realized that it can induce dangerous spikes in blood pressure. The second was scorned for causing dry mouth, blurry vision, and — worst of all — weight gain.

A little more than a decade later the discovery of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) prompted the public to reengage with medicinal approaches. Though generally no more effective than tricyclics, the SSRIs — drugs with trade names such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft — offer the sexy side benefit of weight loss. Consequently, they have emerged as the favored remedy. Yet studies show they are often little better over time than a regimen of physical exercise. As Miller notes, “only half of treated patients see a disappearance of symptoms within a year of intervention, while another 20 percent find only a partial reduction of symptoms; and the positive effects that are gained through intervention are not enduring — when we stop taking the drugs, depression or anxiety often returns.”

Perhaps the problem is that pharmacological treatments skip past the un­derlying question of cause. That fact prompts psychoanalysts to clear their throats, effortfully bidding for our notice. But research on both psychoanalysis and most forms of psychotherapy shows that they function best as a supplement to other methods. Ironically, a type of talk therapy that has been found to have better documented outcomes is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an approach that does not focus upon examination of the sources of despair. Rather, CBT emphasizes changing thinking through repeated interventions of positive “self-talk.”

Miller begins her story in the lab. That’s where she and her co-workers were examining data sets that they had compiled from brain-imaging tests. These compared self-described religious and spiritual folk with determined skeptics and nonbelievers. To her colleagues’ surprise, it turned out that faith strongly correlated with indicators of mental health. That finding was reinforced when the Columbia researchers looked at electroencephalograms (EEGs). These revealed that believers had higher levels of high-amplitude alpha waves. Miller knew that these brain signals tend to increase when patients are placed on SSRIs and that they fade out when patients are taken off the drugs. So this was an intriguing finding. The research unit then discovered that those recovering from depression who are believers had particularly elevated levels of alpha waves compared with those of recovering nonbelievers. This suggests that the original finding was not just a sign of correlation. It implies causation: that faith can alleviate despair.

Miller is critical of the psychiatric establishment for ignoring the connection. Her critique of this disregard is informed by her experiences working with the chronically depressed in institutional settings. She cites cases in which patients she was treating were actually discouraged by her psychiatric co-workers from praying or seeking answers from religion. More, she im­plies that the disdain of the doctors was spurred by their egotism and pride. They were, it seems, intent on side­lining the competition.

If you have been through a bout with what Churchill called the “black dog,” you undoubtedly know that it unites sadness with meaninglessness. The blank emptiness of the surrounding space deprives the experience of suffering of a feeling of connectedness or purpose. As this is what religion provides, it should be among the most obvious treatment approaches — no matter that the greater part of the psychiatric establishment has scrupulously avoided it or, like Freud, made war against it.

Miller’s personal contest with de­pression concluded favorably. On the night that she and her husband learned that they were to adopt a boy from Russia, she conceived the elder of her two daughters. That was also the start of a period of religious and spiritual awakening — hence, the title of her book. It turns out that it’s appearing on the heels of How to Change Your Mind, by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In his new book, Pollan returns to the 1960s, promoting hallucinogens as a palliative for distress. In doing so, he leaves his readers in the dark about the data showing that use of MDMA (ecstasy) is associated with markedly increased rates of suicide attempts among the young. Pollan omits that widely reported finding from the National Household Survey on Drusg Abuse. It has been pointedly ignored, too, by an adoring liberal intelligentsia. (At one point he actually suggests that psychedelics should be looked to as the answer to the problem of suicide.) What the talking heads show much less appreciation for is the redemptive power of faith. That is merely proven by several millennia of human existence. With this in mind (so to speak), readers will find Miller’s book timely.