Overcoming Depression 3rd Edition: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques

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This is a really valuable book and I think it would help if everyone read, regardless of whether they think they are depressed or not. It’s based on Cognitive Behavioural approachsd to managing depression. The logic goes like this, thoughts, feelings and behaviour are all connected. Change one, and others will change. Therefore by getting control of your thoughts you feel differently, and by changing behaviour you can get more control of thoughts and as you feel differently so thoughts and behaviour can change. Negative thoughts and feelings supported by unhelpful behaviour create depressive cycles. These can be broken. Underlying all of this is Compassion, compassionate thoughts, feelings, behaviors etc. The author shows a great deal of wisdom when exploring uncomfortable and emotionally charged concepts, balancing them with perfectly timed, warm notes of love and reason. For me, this ignores the positives of the occupation. In writing A Cure for Darkness: The Story of Depression and How We Treat It, I found stability in purpose. I felt free to explore topics as diverse as the history of ECT, the role of psychedelic drugs in psychiatry, and even to travel to Zimbabwe to meet a group of grandmothers who stand at the forefront of a revolution in mental healthcare. Read on to learn more about depression and how it affects people. You’ll also get to know what treatments and lifestyle changes improve symptoms, and how more people can get the help they need. Personal journey … Kay Redfield Jamison. Photograph: Robert Sherbow/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

Best for scientific explanation: The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time One key path of training is to make a commitment to develop one’s compassion for self and others, and with this one’s wisdom, emotional tolerance, strength and kindness. We can try to practise compassionate attention, thinking, behavior and feeling – each day! Depression is the most common mental health population in the general population (Kessler et al., 1994). It is estimated that around 11% of individuals will experience depression at some point in their lifetime (Lim et al., 2018). Symptoms include feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, or guilt; loss of interest in activities; reduced energy; changes in sleep or appetite; and thoughts of suicide or death.

Accept your depression as a brain state that has been triggered in you rather than feel ashamed of it, fight with it, hate it or condemn yourself. Once you accept it then you are freed to work compassionately with it. You can then take the objective view that by working in a certain way you may be able to shift this brain state. It is about healing our minds. Best for breaking bad habits: Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You

The book begins with a "CBT Starter Guide," which is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to learn more about this approach. From there, Gillihan works through a variety of behavior strategies, such as goal setting, mindfulness, avoiding procrastination, and managing anger. Each chapter ends with a helpful summary, as well as homework assignments to reinforce what you've learned. We love the helpful diagrams, charts, and activities throughout the book. Also, reading books about depression—even if you’ve personally never felt depressed—can help you empathize with others who do experience depression. This can strengthen your relationships with those you care about and help you understand what depression is from a more nuanced point of view. Best for a new perspective: The Depression Cure: The 6-Step Program to Beat Depression Without Drugs Specialty: A person may wish to look for the book that best describes their situation — for example, a difficult relationship or a past trauma. Alternatively, they may want one that focuses on the depression-related symptoms they would like to learn more about, such as troubling thoughts. Clients use the Workbooks which contain elements of psychoeducation, skills development, self-assessment quizzes, homework exercises, and record forms.An absolutely brilliant book. It's massive, it's huge, it's repetitive at times. But it's oh so worth it. This is surprisingly taxing, the authors writing is not the prettiest of prose or most lyrical of poetry but is instead candid and to the point, it can be incredibly disarming. He is often very honest about his own experiences and this provides an insight and sense of understanding which I have not found in other self-help books. Sometimes the web of emotion and behavior one might experience and feel totally wrapped up in are laid out with such startling simplicity and warm acceptance that you have to put the book down and walk away. For example, I had never considered how difficult relationships with teachers as a child would underpin a complex and lifelong sense of perfectionism as well as overwhelming anxiety when starting a new class or trying to learn a new skill. Understanding exactly how emotions work, and how our experiences can shape them and lead our minds to create thematically linked emotional/behavioral symbionts is at first quite frightening, suddenly years of fear or anxiety make sense! You see how past experiences, biology and normal human emotional logic intersect to result in certain moods, styles of thinking or behaving. This book explains what depression is, what function it serves and gives you cognitive behavioral therapy exercises to learn how to deal with it better, and ultimately, overcome it. The book also shows the compassionate heart of the author to the patients in suffering. Reading through the words, one really gets to understand the caring attitudes of the author by its detailed description, kind advice of skipping certain chapters, concluding points at the end of each chapter. He's aware that the book is read probably by people whose mind abilities are largely handicapped by the ongoing depression.

Firstly I would like to say that this review is predicated on the assumption that self-help books are best reviewed in comparison to other self-help books. On that note, this is a no-nonsense, evidence-based introduction to cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and how they relate to common themes and issues in clinical depression. Unfortunately the vast majority of self-help books are short, careerist essays on "Positivity," and despite some good writing and the best of intentions tend to come off as incredibly glib or trite. Cuijpers, P., Noma, H., Karyotaki, E., Cipriani, A., & Furukawa, T. A. (2019). Effectiveness and acceptability of cognitive behavior therapy delivery formats in adults with depression: a network meta-analysis. JAMA Psychiatry, 76, 700-707. DOI:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0268.

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Best for Buddhist philosophy: The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness In the autumn of 2015, I felt numb, worthless, and had thoughts of ending my life. I was 25 years old and I was experiencing my first bout of depression, an illness that has ebbed and flowed ever since. At first, I was hesitant to take medication and opted for a course of cognitive behavioural therapy. I worried that medication would dampen my brain, dull my experience of the world and my ability to describe it. Only later did I find that the right drug is a key tool for my career. When I’m stable I can write. When I’m depressed, I can barely walk or talk. An encyclopedia of depression that is astounding in its breadth and intimacy. It includes harrowing moments when Solomon, struggling with his own depression, tries to contract HIV from a homeless person as he believes he is only worthy of death. The work of Harry Harlow and his separation experiments with monkeys are infamous. The wire-cage mother, the clown-like faces, and the baby monkey clinging to the inanimate chest are symbols of animal cruelty in science. Blum provides a cinematic exploration of Harlow’s life and career, revealing his own struggles with depression and how his work helped reveal the importance of love and attachment in mental health.

Compassion feelings can be difficult to experience because that system in our brain is toned down and/ or we are frightened of it. It can feel overwhelming, or make us feel sadder; we may feel we don’t deserve it or that we will let ourselves off the hook or become weak. So at first we need to work on compassionate thinking and compassionate behaviour. Think about compassion training as physiotherapy for your brain. It is then a question of step by step, working your exercises to increase your capacity to tolerate and feel compassion. Authored by leading psychologists including David Barlow, Michelle Craske and Edna Foa, Treatments That Work® is a series of manuals and workbooks based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Each pair of books – therapist guide and client workbook –contains step-by-step procedures for delivering evidence-based psychological interventions and will help you to provide the best possible care for your clients. While it's helpful to hear perspectives on depression from a spectrum of people, it's often best to choose a book penned by a mental health expert. A mental health expert is someone who has been medically trained, has personal experience working with many types of people with depression, and has likely put in thousands of hours into the topic. Shame can be one of the main reasons why you may be reluctant to seek help, but remember that depression is one of the most common problems that mental health professionals work with. You are far from alone. A similar case can be made for talking with friends; open up to friends, but choose people who you think will be able to understand you. The one thing this book made me wonder is why we are not teaching, in schools, the basics of good thinking, healthy relationship and behaviour management. Books like this make it evident that we have the knowledge. How much misery, illness, crime, bullying, and future bad parenting could we eradicate simply by teaching thought and behaviour management as a curriculum subject?Cuijpers, P. (2017). Four decades of outcome research on psychotherapies for adult depression: An overview of a series of meta-analyses. Canadian Psychology / Psychologie Canadienne, 58, 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000096. Although written for the client, the exercises in the workbook are intended to be carried out under the supervision of a mental health professional. The authors suggest that the most effective implementation of these exercises requires an understanding of the principles underlying the different procedures, and that mental health professionals should be familiar with both the Overcoming Depression – A Cognitive Therapy Approach: Therapist Guide as well as this workbook. Lim, G. Y., Tam, W. W., Lu, Y., Ho, C. S., Zhang, M. W., & Ho, R. C. (2018). Prevalence of depression in the community from 30 countries between 1994 and 2014. Scientific Reports, 8, 1-10. DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-21243-x.