Customer Reviews

Beating Depression: The Journey to Hope

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read this clear, practical book from cover to cover. Having been a physician for 22 years, and a psychiatrist for most of that, I have seen a multitude of books, both expert and popular, on mental health.
"Beating Depression" is in a class by itself.
First, the writers have a collective wealth of clinical, academic and research experience that informs their work. Content is current and authoritative. Second, "Beating Depression" is very clear and easy to read. It is well-organized and practical, --and obviously designed to help people and their families get the care they need for depression. I use it, and highly recommend it to friends, colleagues, and patients.

Dr Jackson-Triche has written one of the best consumer-oriented guidebooks on depression. In plain, approachable writing the usually difficult-to-understand clinical definitions of depression are made clear and understandable to a lay person without "dumbing down."

Those who suffer from depression are treated with respect and caring, and are truly given hope along with solid and trustworthy information.

Having spent decades trying to understand and accept my own depression without shame and hopelessness, this book has helped me become proactive in my treatment. The concepts unpacked in this book are now as familiar to me as they are to my doctors and therapists, and I can ask for help in an empowered way. This is the most hopeful news I can pass on to anyone who has suffered from depression.

Highly recommended!

Beating Depression is that rare book that is both easily readable by anyone with interest in this area, and highly accurate from a clinical and research standpoint. It skillfully blends hope, advocacy, practical information, self-help techniques and resource lists into a succinct text. The information and recommendations it contains are based on solid research evidence and current best practices. It stands out as a valuable addition to the books that clinicians can confidently recommend to patients and their families. It is also a book that clinicians with responsibilities for setting policy in health systems can use to help educate a broad range of stakeholders about important aspects of depressive illness.

There are MANY books on depression, and many of them are long, dense or anguished. However, Beating Depression is a short yet comprehensive guide to this most widespread problem. It covers all the relevant issues around this complex, ubiqitous mental illness offering simple, straightforward information to the reader. The checklists enable one to determine if he has symptoms that could be treated, and the choices for treatment are clearly explained as well. The result is clarity and reassurance that an improved quality of life is well within one's grasp.

This book offers solid pratical advice on how to deal with depression and make your life more worthwhile and less hopeless.
Highly recommended!

The best that I can say about this book is that it does not contain any misinformation on depression, as one can regularly find on the Internet. It is a very basic book, listing symptoms, medications, etc.-all very uncritically. If you are looking for direction in your plight against depression, this isn't the place to look. The book could have benefited from more commentary, such as the differences in side effects from say, Prozac and Paxil. Also missing is what to do about the accompanying anxiety that often comes as part of the complete depressive syndrome. There is no discussion of the antidepressants that are especially difficult to discontinue (the premier example being Effexor). Maddeningly, the authors often take a stance that depression is as curable as athlete's foot and is no real great disruption of one's life-no mention of current research that if you've had a couple extensive periods of depression in life, you are well-advised to assume that there will be more depression in the future and that those future episodes will be more severe, hence action is needed now to attempt to modify that prognosis. If you are tempted to buy the book nonetheless, I'd suggest buying a used version for a penny plus postage-you may then be getting your money's worth of information and clinical insight.

I picked up this book and loved it. Very simple and a solid read. It helped me and I bet it will help you too.