Undercurrents: A Therapist's Reckoning With Her Own Depression [Hardcover]

Martha Manning (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995

Like the lucid madness chronicled in Girl, Interrupted, this riveting memoir--at times wickedly funny and deeply heartbreaking--traces the gradually harrowing path through the life of Martha Manning, a psychotherapist who agrees to undergo electroconvulsive therapy in an effort to rid herself of severe clinical depression.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Manning, a clinical psychologist, led a busy life as therapist, mother and psychology professor at George Mason University in Virginia when, in 1990, she sank into crippling depression. Obsessed with images of death and plagued by suicidal thoughts, she vainly sought relief through antidepressants and psychiatric counseling. Simmering with misplaced anger at her husband, Brian, and fearful that their daughter, Keara, could not rely on her, Manning finally agreed to her psychiatrist's recommendation to submit to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In this sensitive journal covering the period 1990-1991, she credits electroshock with lifting her out of a life-threatening depression, though she concedes that it caused some memory loss and confusion. She also continues to cope with much smaller depressions and may have to take antidepressants or lithium for the rest of her life. Her edgy self-portrait will probably fuel the debate over a controversial therapy. $75,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As psychotherapist Manning began her slow descent into depression, she recognized the signposts along the way: a sense that she was losing control of her life, perpetual fogginess in her head, social withdrawl and subsequent isolation, and a painful alienation from all that gave her life pleasure and meaning-except her daughter. She recounts how medications were tried and discarded, psychotherapy proved fruitless, and her mind became overwhelmed with thoughts of death as a way out of her ceaseless torment. The one last hope was electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the thought of which left her feeling frightened and totally helpless. Nevertheless, ECT alleviated her despair and began her recovery. Told in journal form, the events so sensitively and insightfully depicted here reveal how tenuous one's connection to physical and mental well-being can be. Recommended for general readers.
Bonnie Hoffman, Stony Brook, N.Y.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062511831
• ISBN-13: 978-0062511836
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #675,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Words to express painful thoughts, January 4, 2000

By 

Ron - [e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface (Paperback)

Martha Mannings book "Undercurrents" was a tremendousencouragement to me when I was desperate. I have suffered severechronic Double Depression for 15 years. I had just finished almost three years in psychotherapy, which left me more depressed to the point of being suicidal before reading Ms Mannings' book. Ms. Mannings is a brave person to go against what appears to be the psychologist's way of thinking about Depression and admits the need for medications. The following are some quotes from the book "undercurrents" - these quotes put into words the thoughts that wander through my mind but I do not have the talent to put into words: "I'm getting less good at faking it. People in my family are noticing and asking what's wrong. My friends give me invitations to talk, to cry, to love them for their caring, but I want to run from it. I have lost their language, their facility with words that convey feelings. I am in new territory and feel like a foreigner in theirs." "In the psychological literature, depression is often seen as a defense against sadness. But I'll take sadness any day. There is no contest. Sadness carries identification. You know where it's been and you know where it's headed. Depression carries no papers. It enters your country unannounced and uninvited. Its origins are unknown, but its destination always dead-ends in you."

"We spend a long weekend with my family at the beach. I've had better times at the dentist. I should come with a consumer warning, like the labels that say 'Handle with care' or 'May be hazardous to your health.' I am unfit for human consumption. I struggle to articulate how awful and isolating this feels, but I can't find the words.." In a difficult discussion with her husband she says: "What do you want me to do, Brian? I take my medicine. I go to therapy. I say my prayers. Tell me what you want me to do. Please. Because right now it takes all I have just to breathe and move and be" Her husband answers: " I know it, Marth, and it's breaking my heart."

"I look at other people and think, 'He lives without meds. She does. What is wrong with me? Am I so biochemically screwed up, so neurotic, so narcissistically self absorbed that every hour is an obstacle course for me?'

And the last quote is the summation of it all. It sums up my overall feelings and no one could say it in any better words. Ms Mannings is able to get inside the Depressives mind as she certainly does mine -: "I don't know, but this can't continue. I feel like I am dying. A slow torturous death. And the worst thing is that I'm taking other people along for the ride. But I swear, I don't know how to do it differently."

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Putting Me at Ease, July 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface (Paperback)

I have suffered from a mental disorder all my life, and the severity has increased over the years. Although the doctors are having a hard time determining what I am suffering from (depression, bipolar, borderline personality) this book spoke to me. Reading through tears while nodding my head, this author has experienced so much that I have, as well as many others. Knowing that she is a woman whose chosen career would send her patients like me was comforting. This book gives me hope that with a great support system, happiness and stability is obtainable. After a long time of feeling out of place or strange I am put as ease and feel human again after reading her story. Anyone who suffers from or has a loved one who is suffering from a mental disorder should read this book.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good insight into depression, January 17, 2005

By 

S. Welles - See all my reviews

This review is from: Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface (Paperback)

After a friend of mine was diagnosed with depression, I did some research on the disease and this was a book I came across. A funny and poignant book, it gives great insight on what it is like to suffer from depression, and the depths of despair and personal hell one person can reach. Manning is at her best when musing on the lessons that she learned from this particularly devastating depressive episode. A good book for anyone who wonders why people with depression just can't "snap out of it."