The symposium date is Wednesday, April 24, with talks from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Hopkins' Turner Auditorium.

Styron will return to the symposium, 13 years after his first talk here, to discuss his personal struggles with depression. His novel "The Confessions of Nat Turner" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and "Sophie's Choice" was adapted as a movie in 1982. In 1990, he wrote a memoir, "Darkness Visible," about his first severe episode of depression. The book was based in large part on the talk he gave at the 1989 symposium.

Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Hopkins, will present "A Family Member's Perspective" of depressive illness. Carson is renowned for his success at performing difficult brain surgeries to control seizures, and for his expertise in separating conjoined twins. He is the author of three best-selling books, "Gifted Hands," "Think Big" and "The Big Picture."

Noted Hopkins psychiatrist, writer and MacArthur Prize winner Kay Redfield Jamison will also speak.

Every year for the past 16 years, DRADA and Hopkins have offered the symposium to raise public awareness of severe depression and bipolar disorder (manic depression) with the help of national figures or celebrities. Hundreds of patients, family members and physicians attending the symposium learn about the latest research as well as ways to cope with mood disorders.

"Millions of Americans suffer needlessly from undiagnosed depression or manic-depressive illness," says J. Raymond DePaulo Jr., M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Hopkins and the author of a new book called "Understanding Depression." "Eighty percent of them could be treated successfully."
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Contact: Trent Stockton
tstockt1@jhmi.edu
410-955-8665
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
17-Apr-2002