Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, she discusses the contributions that Darkness Visible makes to the layperson's understanding of depression, particularly as the illness is experienced by the sufferer.

In 1985, author William Styron suffered a bout of depression so severe that after months of misery, barely able to sleep, engulfed by a "gray drizzle of horror," convinced there was "no escape" from his devastating situation, he stood on the brink of taking his own life. Although Styron managed to withdraw from the abyss and commit himself to a psychiatric ward where he regained his mental health, questions remained for him. What had caused the depression? How was he able to recover from it? How does society, including the medical community, react to its depressed members? Styron explores these...