45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
With a bit of self-discipline, this program really works!!, December 17, 2007
This review is from: Control Your Depression, Rev'd Ed (Paperback)
I used this book several years ago, maybe three, and it was so helpful. It is much more than a pep-talk, it is a specific how-to manual that gives you concrete ideas about the steps you must take to lift yourself out of your slump/minor depression.
First, you have to get a handle on whether you are depressed (it could be something else making you blue), and how severely you are depressed. The book is designed for people whose depression scores are between 5-15 on the Beck scale (provided). If you are higher than 15, the author recommends that you give the book a try, but keep in mind that you MAY need professional assistance. I was a 23, but this book worked wonders for me, without any assistance.
The book has a behavioral approach to depression. This means that the authors believe your depressive behavior and feelings can be changed by first identifying/focusing on antecedents (what precedes your behavior or feelings) and consequences (what follows a behavior). The next step is to consciously change the antecedents and consequences of your behavior, rewarding yourself as you do so, and thereby slowly and steadily lift yourself out of depression.
A behavioral focus also means that this book will not help you analyze how you got started in your depressive behavior patterns. The authors believe it is not necessary to dig through all that stuff that in order to change yourself.
So in a way, this book is the antithesis of "talk therapy" -- I'd call this "do therapy".
The authors acknowledge that there are multiple roads to depression, that every depressed person has a unique set of problems. However, many of these problems can be lumped into broad categories, each of which is given a chapter clearly explaining strategies for improving your skills in that area. The strategy chapters include: "Learning to Relax", "Pleasant Activities", "Learning How to Be Socially Skillful", "Using Your Social Skills", "Controlling Thoughts", and "Constructive Thinking".
For my bout of depression, the two chapters I needed to focus on were "Pleasant Activities" and "Constructive Thinking".
The idea behind "Pleasant Activities" is that you are depressed because most of your interactions with your environment do not have rewarding outcomes and/or have dissatisfying, unpleasant, or distressing outcomes. So, to change your depression, you need to change the balance so that you get more positive than negative payoffs from interacting your environment, every single day.
I actually had to rate a list of 320 activities (provided) with how pleasant I found them and how frequently I was able to do them, and then use that to create an activity list with 100 things I like and am able to do. I added a few of my own that were not included in the list. Then I had to make a daily plan that made time for several of those activities every day, and I had to chart my daily mood so I could see if I felt better when I did more of those activities.
This was incredibly valuable to me, and highly effective. When I start feeling depressed I want to hole up and sleep, doing only the most "necessary" activities (which often tend to be quite unrewarding - dishes, laundry, etc...). The authors insist that you do activities you LIKE to do, regardless of their actual utility.
For me, my list includes things like carve stamps, write reviews on Amazon, watch Voyager episodes, make stuff with beads and/or fabric, talk on the phone with a friend, etc... When I feel that slump coming on, it is too easy to view these activities as TIME WASTED, something to beat myself up about. The thing I now keep in mind is that the small things that energize me and make me happy are actually IMPORTANT in and of themselves, just because I like to do them.
"Constructive thinking" was also very helpful to me, because I realize that I have these ongoing monologues in my head that are very critical and very hurtful -- I say things to myself I would NEVER say to my children, things that I know would be devastating to say to children -- and yet, I listen to myself say horrible thing after judgmental thing after critical thing to myself!!
Well anyway. It may sound like this book has a simplistic view of depression, but actually, I think it is quite well rounded. It provides the framework for an action plan to combat depression, but you fill in the details.
There are a few potential problems with this book. First, you have to know yourself pretty well in order to use the book. You have to know what actually rewards you, what your strengths and weaknesses are. You have to be able to assess yourself with the tools the book gives you. Some people may need help to do this.
The second issue is that it takes a fair amount of work to set up these monitoring and behavior programs for yourself. It takes a fair amount of self-discipline to keep following through (although you are supposed to be rewarding yourself for the steps you take). Some people may need help to do this.
Finally, I think that some people's brains may not be wired to think in quantitative terms. I tried to explain the "Pleasant Activities" list to another friend who felt depressed, and she was aghast. She said she could never rate activities, that her brain didn't work that way. So if she wanted to try this book, she would probably need help to work through it, to think about her problems in a behavioral, quantitative way.
For me, I think this was a little easier because we used ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) with my son years ago when he was 3, so I was very familiar with the concepts driving this book, and quite experienced with the work involved in keeping up behavioral programs.
Oh, one more thing, this book directly doesn't address existential dispair. But to my way of thinking, even people who are agonized over world events or "what it all means" -- these people still have to live in and interact with their environment. The more rewarding those interactions are, then, at least for me, the less crushing the "big picture" things become. And in fact, if you can get beyond despair and hopelessness, you might actually become an instrument for change, you might actually be able to do something meaningful about other people's suffering, to somehow put your compassion and angst into action.
Well anyway. That's my 2 cents about this book, for what its worth. I loved it, I credit it with preventing my downward spiral and bringing me back in touch with some of the things I need to do in order to enjoy and appreciate life.
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