Silencing The Self: Women and Depression [Paperback]

Dana C. Jack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 1993

"This book is relevant to anyone grappling with the central challenge of relationships: how to achieve connections to others without losing oneself."--Deborah Tannen (author of You Just Don't Understand), New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

In an enlightening but limited study, Jack (Psychology/Western Washington Univ.) focuses on the psychosocial factors behind female depression. Referring to classical theorists (Bowlby, Freud, Winnicott, etc.) as well as to contemporary mentors (Heilbrum, Gilligan, Bernard, etc.) and important cultural observers (Rich, Dinnerstein, Olsen, etc.), she presents a formulation based on the centrality of relationships in women's lives. Contending that interpersonal intimacy, not separation, is ``the profound organizer of female experience,'' Jack rejects the standard mental-health definition of depression, with its assumptions of male dominance, and looks for new, specifically female norms using depressed women as guides (and trusting their reliability as witnesses). She uncovers several common themes in their lives with men--patterns of self-censorship and anger resulting in the absence of intimacy--and examines their cultural sources: how women learn to shape their behavior to fit an imagined male ideal, say, or how mothers pass along submissive behaviors to daughters. Much of this is valuable to understanding some depressions, and the many examples of women who stifle impulses and their authentic selves, and who undermine the integrity of their relationships with men, offer strong validation. Jack can even turn unlikely material like the story of Rumpelstiltskin into relevant testimony. But her sample is slight (twelve DSM-III diagnosed women seen several times during a two-year period) and doesn't reflect a full range of depression onsets. Moreover, although she refers to the presence of biological factors in the opening chapter, they play no part in the argument that follows. Jack also neglects other instances of depression--including those following illness or a loved one's death, and depression in males--that would have been useful for contrast. Even so, look for this as a complement to often-cited books already on the shelves and expect readers to respond to the unadorned anecdotes, forceful prose style, and steady flow of insights into the dynamics of female depression. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

In a field much given to ranting, [Dana Jack's] is a practical approach, and especially welcome for that reason. She provides factual information about the depressed women she has studied, and gives ample scope to their voices too. In an appendix, she even offers a questionnaire...The impression Silencing the Self leaves is of compassion geared to good sense. It is a serious book, advancing an argument of intrinsic significance. (Liam Hudson Times Literary Supplement )

Silencing the Self raises questions as fascinating as the answers it offers...What I found most compelling was the women's own voices. The conflicts and losses depressed women describe are different not only in degree from those felt by women who are not clinically depressed. That is why this book is relevant to anyone grappling with the central challenge of relationships: how to achieve connections to others without losing oneself. (Deborah Tannen New York Times Book Review )

Jack's study undoes some of the treachery [clinically depressed] women have endured by simply calling its name. And regardless of how much we believe things may have changed, the ravaged voices finally speaking in Silencing the Self are testimony otherwise. (Gail Caldwell Boston Globe )

Dana Crowley Jack offers new hypotheses [about women's depression] based on data gleaned from an intensive, longitudinal study of twelve clinically depressed women. Attending closely to the metaphors of loss and self-reproach these women use to describe their lives and their intimate relationships, Jack identifies a 'loss of self' as the most salient feature of female depression...[A] dazzling array of insights...[Jack] has provided a lucid and valuable book. (Sharland Trotter Women's Review of Books )

In Silencing the Self, Jack points out that women's legitimate needs for intimacy have too often been negatively perceived as expressions of dependency. Resultant 'self-silencing' behavior--like the suppression of anger in relationships--often triggers the plunge of depression. The voices of Jack's former patients provide dynamic and hands-on proof of her compelling thesis. (Lisa Shea Mirabella ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (January 13, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006097527X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060975272
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #700,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Depressed women, January 15, 2002

By 

D. P. Birkett (Suffern, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silencing the Self: Women and Depression (Hardcover)

It is well established from epidemiological studies that women suffer more depressive illness than men. Housebound housewives have a specially high amount of depression. Men commit suicide more often and are more ptone to alcoholism. A number of theories have been suggested to account for these facts.
Jack reviews some of the psychological theories (none of the biological ones) and presents her own theory that the depression is the result of women's indoctrination to self-effacement and low self-esteem (This is an over-simplification, and you'd have to read the book to do her ideas full justice).
She supports her thesis by a two year study of twelve depressed women. She did not have a control group. I don't see why not. It could be that she wanted to concentrate on the individuals' feelings in a non-quantitative way, but she does present a questionnaire and some statistics.
Nevertheless the interviews and case studies are well done and helpful to anyone interested in depression. Her recommended psychotherapy methods (medication is barely mentions) seem to be what is sometimes called dialectical or cognitive. Again you'd need a control group to prove treatment effectiveness.
As a self-help book for depressed patients themselves. I think it's a little too densely written. The writing is good and lucid, but someone in the throes of a severe depression would find trouble following it. Relatives of depressed women, especially husbands, might benefit more but this is not one of the depression books I would highly recommend to non-professionals. Prodessionals who work with depression and students who are interested in cognitive and dialectical approaches with (ok - now it comes) a feminist slant should find it useful and highly readable.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for women to re-discover who they were and can be!, September 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Silencing The Self: Women and Depression (Paperback)

An opportunity for women to put the pieces of thier lives together to form a complete picture of themselves. Offers others' lives to identify with through thier experiences. Also presents an opportunity to recognize that society plays a major role in women's self-distortion. If one can make it through the first chapter, the rest is easy!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic & exclusionary, May 18, 2006

By 

cathy earnshaw (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silencing The Self: Women and Depression (Paperback)

Despite the grandiose subtitle Women and Depression", this book in fact draws upon interviews with twelve women - all of whom are white and heterosexual (and all but one were married). Considering this was originally published in 1991, long after bell hooks and Adrienne Rich had exposed the racist and heterosexist bias of early feminist texts, Dana Jack's exclusionism is really not excusable!

Nevertheless, her thesis: Jack describes the root cause of depression in (her selection of) women as the loss of the self: "Women describe their depression as precipitated...by the recognition that they have lost themselves in trying to establish an intimacy that was never attained." She describes at length how women, in trying to live up to ideals of femalehood, engage in processes of self-alientation. "Despair arises," she concludes, "when a person feels hopeless about the possibility of emotional contact with others." But depression is a very complex illness with myriad root causes (inherited susceptibility, social status, family situation, childhood trauma etc.); defining it so narrowly is only really going to be helpful for selected sufferers.

Where Dana Jack is good is on elucidating the sheer activity and effort that some women put into being so compliantly passive. The twelve women are very candid about their feelings on this point and Jack gives them alot of space. However, the psychosocial origins of depressive behaviour remain opaque: Why is it that women are twice as likely as men to suffer from depression (although men are more likely to kill themselves)? Why are the numbers seemingly rising in spite of feminist advances in the last decades? How are forms of social oppression and depression in women linked? Offering more flexible and expansive answers to such questions would help us understand the root causes of such illnesses in society and would help all women (and not just the white, heterosexual ones) out of the psychological dead-end of depression.