Customer Reviews

I Love Me: Avoiding & Overcoming Depression

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

The author's background in psychology could lead one to believe that his book deals directly with the subject matter of the title: DEPRESSION. However, the title should more appropriately read: The Fundamental Beliefs of a born-again Christian. In addition, the author's prejudicial remarks against specific groups such as homosexuals, Catholics, Mormons, feminists, and even psychologists are uncomfortable to read. He continually quotes the bible, but must have missed...judge not, lest you be judged. Also, Scherf's ignorance on other matters is amazing. To avoid rape, he suggests that a woman should not dress inappropriately, when it is well known that rape is a crime of violence/power/control. He makes a similar comparison to sexual harassment, subtly blaming women for these situations. To make matters worse, his description of hell is enough to make you depressed, if you aren't already. It reads like something out of a horror film, and is almost a threat to those that do not follow his particular religion or opinions. But what does all this have to do with depression anyway? I agree with someone who described this writing as unethical. I returned this book - first time ever! (Worst book ever!)

I found this book had good intentions but was extremely simplistic in it's approach. The author assumes that all a depressed woman needs to do is get married and she will be happy. He tends to be very judgemental and preachy totally ignoring all the facets that make up the illness of depression.I am a Christian so I am not opposed to the book on those grounds. It just seemed that the approach was one of " smile, believe and you will feel better."I felt the book was talking down to me and I was so annyed I couldn't even finish it. Definitely NOT helpful to someone who has struggled to battle this illness, It reinforces all the stigma and stereotypes that those who have not experienced it tend to believe about depression.I am sorry I wasted my time trying to read it.

I'm quite surprised at the number of positive reviews this book received. Out of the many dozens of books I've bought over the years, this is one of maybe three that I've found so useless that I returned it. Mr. Scherf has no training as a psychologist; he bases his book on his religious faith. This would normally be just fine, but he boils it down to "You're OK because God made you," and "You'll be great if you just hold to the Truth" (i.e., the Bible). I am an intelligent _and_ religious person, and I found this book to be the worst vacuous pop-fluff-psycho-religious opinion-spewing I've seen in a long, long, long time.

There are an unusually large number of recommendations for this book on other Amazon pages for legitimate books on depression, not to mention an inordinant amount of (anonymous) 5-star reviews here. I suspect there's one person (the author?) manipulating things a bit.

"I Love Me" is a self-published book of Born-Again Christian philosophy by Las Vegas entrepreneur Dietmar Scherf. He is not licensed in any way to dispense psychological counseling. His basic theory is that if you simply accept the "One God" (his words), your depression will miraculously dissolve. According to the 'wisdom' of Scherf, alcoholism isn't a disease, just a bad habit of bad people who don't want to stop; Homosexuality is "curable"; Women should not be equal with their husbands, but an obedient helpmate (and should only blame themselves for unhappiness, harrassment and rape if they choose a more independent path); and, of course, all other religious beliefs are wrong.

I don't deny Mr. Scherf's right to self-publish his thoughts on anything. But it's wrong to market those thoughts under the guise of clinical psychology.

It is unfortunate that in a discipline as serious as psychology/mental health, one often finds that a spiritual book innocuously intrudes to introduce the cruel and ungodly lie -- that all your problems are caused by a lack of faith in God. Improve your faith and improve your life? This may work in some cases, temporarily, even if we are dealing with ordinary sadness. But the cycle of anxiety/depression is a medical condition, resulting from a chemical imbalance/metabolic deficiency produced by such things as vitamin deficiencies, food allergies, environmental pollutants or chemical fumes (like formaldehyde from industrial, home and auto rugs), infectious or hereditary diseases. One may be able to pull oneself out of it the first time, but when you have to pull yourself out of sadness every day, or when happiness is more and more elusive, you have a real problem. It is an awfully unethical claim, that one's physical problems are one's own fault, as this book implies. Reviews below say that this book worked for them, but the temporary high that individuals get when they believe they have found the solution (usually they just want to hear what the author is saying because it's easier to take than the truth) is only a momentary surge out of depression, if that. Just as bad is the idea that God is a being who will handle and solve all of your problems. God gave you a brain so you can manage your own life. Hmmm. This is also an insulting book to women's roles, and thus to men, since it seems to tell women that our happiness is in subordinating ourselves to a man, then letting the man handle all the problems. What do you get but an anxious, overtaxed, even depressed male and a co-dependent,childish female who makes everyone else anxious and depressed? Some of the solutions to our sadnesses given in this book are already proven by behavioral modification to help, such as taking care with one's appearance. They just help so much and so far. It is also found through scientific research that smiling can alleviate feelings of depression, for a while. People need the proper medical advice (conceding that it is hard to find, since most physicians seem to me to be a collection of the most ignorant individuals on this earth), and I would recommend one find a decent doctor to help with depression -- one who explores causes and doesn't just hand out the generic pill -- and a caring therapist to help deal with the ramifications rather than turn to this book, which too clearly dismisses the human reality of depression by "leaving it all up to God." This was unethical writing and unethical publishing.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! I bought this book because of some positive reviews, thinking that though I am not religious I could deal with some God stuff to see what his thoughts about depression were. Imagine my surprise when I found that this book has nothing at all to do with what depression really is, but is actually an insidious propaganda tool! He barely mentions God at all for the first 45 pages. Only when you are hooked and starting to wonder about his point does he start preaching with missionary zeal. This book actually says, and I quote, "Along the way we're also confronted with perverted sex like homosexuality.... Certain experts want to make us believe certain people are born to be homosexuals. That's a lie. Nobody has ever been born a homosexual. Homosexuality is a choice.... Suicidal tendencies and depression are consistently present..." As a lesbian with no guilt, depression or suicide attempts surrounding my sexuality, I am shocked and offended by such self-published trash. I will be burning my copy of this book -- allowing it to exist in my world is depressing me.

I agree with the reviewer who said that he believes the positive reviews were connived by the author or his friends. I found three or four recommendations for this book on a site dealing with "Reincarnation" and "Metaphysics"--subjects that not too many conservative, born-again Christians are going to be opening their minds to study. It looked very "planted" to me.

Take it from an ex-"Born Again"--your depression will return. The Christian faith contains the very "seeds" for depression--from their grim, ridiculous version of an "everlasting" hell to their Old Testament God who found it justifiable to slaughter people right and left, to their narrow-minded judgment and intolerance of anybody with beliefs differing from their own.

I have only one thing to say about this book--the author has a very narrow view of humanity, and the book has little to do with the real problems of depression, but more to do with his personal beliefs. Anybody with an ounce of real "Spirituality" or relationship with God would never venture to make the kind of judgments he has made in this book about basically "everyone" who doesn't fit into his narrow parameters of "truth!"

If you are even slightly intelligent and open-minded, don't waste your time, and don't be fooled by positive reviews that sound like they were all written by the same person!

If you are unhappy in your life for whatever reason, this book may give you some tools to deal with this unhappiness. It will especially help those who have been misdiagnosed with depression. However, the author has no concept of true depression or manic depression. He doesn't understand that you can't simply hope away a true chemical inbalance. The fact that he suffered from a mental illness earlier in his life doesn't add to the credibility of this book -- he wants us to believe that his actions are the thing that eliminated mental illness from his life when in fact, people often only suffer from one or two or three bouts of depression their whole life. It's not unusual to go decades without having a recurrence of symptoms. Others are less fortunate and suffer from true mental illness their whole lives. As i say, this book will help you if you're having struggles in your life but not for true mental illness. It's a shame to see people manipulate mental illness for their own gain. Trully a shame.

I was appalled at the white male patriarchal tone of this book. I think it's wrong the way he puts down other people's religion and judges others by his standards. Basically, he gives only pat answers to depression. If you are protestant, heterosexual, white, superbiblical, you may like this book.

The book starts out with an eye-opening chapter on "Identity Crisis/Self-Analysis" and it is easy to understand. Dr. Scherf has done his research as he, too, once suffered from manic depression and has been healed from it since the early 80s. This book cuts to the heart of the matter in a very loving way, and the author doesn't compromise when it comes to the crucial issues that need to be dealt with, so that healing of depression can take place. I think that's what the critics don't like: Dr. Scherf is very direct, but he has a kind and loving approach. For the spiritual aspect of this book, he uses biblical principles that are so true, but he leaves every reader a freedom of choice to accept his research results or reject them. I think this book is something every person should read, no matter if they're depressed or not, because it is a motivating book, and it discusses absolutes and convictions that we're all struggling with, and "I Love Me" provides us with many answers on these key issues.