Lifting the Weight: Understanding Depression in Men, Its Causes and Solutions [Hardcover]

Martin Kantor M.D. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0275993728 | ISBN-13: 978-0275993726 | Publication Date: August 30, 2007

Depression in men often goes undiagnosed or improperly treated because of unique qualities that make it different from depression in women. In this volume, Dr. Kantor explains that depression in men is not strictly the product of major life events; it also regularly appears in response to minor troubling issues that often go entirely overlooked by others or, if recognized at all, are downplayed. In this jargon-free text, Kantor explains how many men are able to navigate the big stresses successfully only to succumb to the little ones. And he challenges the current widespread tendency now viewing depression in men as a strictly biological event to be treated first and foremost with pharmaceuticals.

Psychiatrist Martin Kantor takes us into his treatment rooms and daily experience to show the signs and causes of depression in men, and how they do not display the disorder most often in the way we typically associate with depression. Many men who feel depressed deny it by shifting into hypomania. Trying to hide, reject or downplay the feeling, they may become excessively elated, have a decreased need for sleep, find their thoughts racing and their sexual desire fueled out of control. Where there was, initially with depression, a withdrawal and a desire to weep, then enters attention-seeking behavior, clowning and flighty energy, explains Kantor. That makes the depression far more difficult for laypeople and professionals—even for the men themselves—to recognize and deal with. That is unfortunate because a small amount of medical attention and personal affection can work wonders, rechanneling the man into a life of happiness he might never have known, and a level of achievement he might never othewise have attained, says Kantor

Long thought to be a feminine disorder connected to hormones and the premenstrual syndrome, depression actually strikes millions of men each year. With absorbing vignettes, and insights into a faulty culture that urges men to always have a stiff upper lip and shun medical attention, Dr. Kantor shows the unique ways in which depression is very much a men's disorder. And he helps us understand what we can do to treat it, to help ourselves and the men we care about recover.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is among the most compelling books on the topic of men and depression this reviewer has ever encountered. Kantor uses his deep professional insights and vast experience to tease apart and explain the complexities involved in the diagnosis and treatment of men suffering from depression. The book covers such topics as guilt, paranoia, sexuality, violence, and passive dependency, and many of the chapters conclude with the differences in the way these difficulties play out in men and women….Clinicians will particularly appreciate a chapter on therapeutic errors, which maps out many mistakes and misperceptions that are common in treating depressed men, e.g., urging the client to take a vacation or increase physical activity. Chapters on self-help and coping with depressed men are also excellent. Readers should profit from Kantor's expansive understanding of this complex topic. Highly recommended. Graduate students through professionals."

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Choice

"To his credit, Kantor avoids overly complicated writing and jargon, attempting to appeal to a broader church than professionals. Additionally, the author is obviously well attuned to the issues facing men prone to depression. His sensitivity to men and their issues is a real strength of the book. Thus, readers will find some fascinating reading here on a broad range of issues including sadomasochism and male depression, male lear of success and depression, the translation of male depression into hypomania, anger and self- or other-criticism, and dealing with male client resistances (for example, excessively blaming others or not feeling the need for help). The psychotherapy and self-help chapters are particularly useful in showing the broad tools that men can use . . . Kantor should be commended for putting out there his best understanding from the perspective of an experienced practitioner. I believe this book is an excellent place to start for those practitioners and clients who wish to learn more about depression among a surprisingly neglected group--men."

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International Journal of Men's Health

Book Description

Explains how to recognize the gender-specific signs and causes of depression in men, as well how to cope with and treat this widespread disorder often neglected or mistreated.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Praeger (August 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275993728
• ISBN-13: 978-0275993726
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,548,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For many people the hardest life challenge to overcome involves the anxiety associated with finding and keeping intense, lasting, committed, long-term, loving relationships. This anxiety is typically the product of a disorder called AvPD, or Avoidant Personality Disorder. This disorder doesn't take life, but it does ruin it. I have treated so many people I know and love succumbing to its ravages that I felt the urgency to write books that offer the layman a step by step method for coping with and overcoming this emotional difficulty.
Mine are the only books that deal with AvPD as an entity, not as a subvariety of Social Phobia. This is significant because the treatment is different in each case: treatment of social phobia should emphasize cognitive-behavioral interventions, while treatment of AvPD additionally requires uncovering via a psychoanalytically-oriented and interpersonal approach that goes beyond attempting to reverse symptoms directly to halting the process of anxious interpersonal withdrawal through uncovering its roots.
The Essential Guide to Overcoming Avoidant Personality Disorder is the third book I have written on the topic, but it is the first with material primarily directed toward individuals who finding themselves lonely and isolated because of relationship anxiety long for a self-help approach based on understanding to overcome the relational terrors that keep them from experiencing the fulfillment that can only come from closeness and commitment to significant others.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on depression i have ever read., September 24, 2007

By 

Tom M. "Tom M." (Hartford, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lifting the Weight: Understanding Depression in Men, Its Causes and Solutions (Hardcover)

Dr. Kantor has added immeasurably to the literature on depression with his latest book. This is the only book I know of that focuses not only on the big but also on the little things that mean a lot and represent some of the real issues why men get depressed. My friends who went for help for depression wound up getting two words out to their psychiatrists then getting medicated; or seeing someone who dealt with early experiences but not the here and now, or only handled the major losses and rejections but not those little things that stick in the craw and are really the route to big,deep, depressive disorder. This is the arena where Kantor fight depression, and what he has written should be read by all men (and women) who suffer from an affective disorder and want to know what is really causing it microscopically and how to enter that microscopic world of the depressed man they love and then take action to reduce its ravages.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good with minor flaws (would have given it 4 1/2 stars if I could), July 21, 2010

By 

O.L. "reader153" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lifting the Weight: Understanding Depression in Men, Its Causes and Solutions (Hardcover)

Very well-written compassionate and insightful treatise on how depression develops and gets diagnosed in men differently than women. (Also discusses ways in which gender does *not* seem to make a difference.) Full of very good insights, although at times the author gives examples from his own *life* (not professional practice, but own personal life) which seem oddly out of place (they often seem meant to disparage someone who has criticized the author, interestingly including via Amazon's reviews!); it hinted of narcissism to me.

But the author more than makes up for by the quality of the discussion, including addressing political concerns (sometimes driven by feminism) which so often seem to poison common-sense and humane responses to the suffering of real people. Note that although the author has written other works about gay men, this work is not simply designed for gay men only, although it certainly uses examples from the lives of gay men whom the author has treated, he also uses examples of heterosexual men (and women) throughout the text (most importantly without condescending or pathologizing them because of sexual orientation; I am a heterosexual male myself and very sensitive to this kind of reverse discrimination trust me.)

As an end-user (or "consumer") I would say this book is more oriented towards the lay public than professionals, which gives it a slightly different tone than some of his previous works (which I've leafed through and seem more designed for professionals). Altogether an excellent work which combines compassion, insight, good-writing, and personal and professional experience(s)--I almost gave five stars (which I rarely if ever do).