Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Medication Can't Give You [Paperback]

"A clear understanding of the nature of depression and the struggles associated with it."

"This well-written book imparts so much common sense and good advice that members and their carers are recommended to buy it."

"To explore more self-help strategies to find the best mix now and to help prevent a recurrence of depression."

In a truly holistic approach that combines the best of many schools of thought about depression Richard O'Connor offers new hope - and new life. One in ten people suffer from depression and for many sufferers depression has been their experience for so long that it is possible to believe that it has become who they are. Yet, depression is an illness, like heart disease; it is something that one "has". "The major reason why people with depression stay depressed despite therapy, medication, and support from loved ones is that we are simply unable to imagine an alternative. We know how it do depression. We are experts at it." Like heart disease depression is fuelled by complex, interrelated factors: genetic, environmental, biochemical. In this eminently sensible book Richard O'Connor considers another, often overlooked factor: our own habits. Unwittingly, the sufferer can become 'good at depression'. Learning how to hide it, how to work around it, perhaps even achieving in their life a depressive can make it through every day but each day is a struggle rather than satisfying. They deprive themselves of the possibility of true recovery, of joy and healthy emotion, of the feeling of being alive in the world. Ultimately, they make things worse. "Undoing Depression" teaches you how to replace depressive patterns of thought and relating to other people and behaving with new, better skills. Anyone who has learned to do depression can learn how to undo it.

what the author has to say
I wanted to write a book to address the issue of preventing depression. The emphasis is too often focused on treatment after someone has hit rock bottom. There is a sense that depression is something that happens to you without warning. I disagree. I think there is a warning - that people do lead a depressed lifestyle before they feel depressed - and that people should be encouraged to believe there is a lot they can do to avoid hitting bottom and to make their recovery much faster and more effective. And because of my own personal experience with depression, I feel a strong desire to help prevent people from suffering what my family and I have gone through. So I've tried to lay out a roadmap for people to follow through recovery. I've taken the "practice wisdom" of good psychotherapy and put it into a form that people can follow to help themselves as they deal with depression in their thinking, their behavior, their emotions, their relationships, and their self-image. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.