Understanding Depression: A Complete Guide to its Diagnosis and Treatment [Hardcover]

Donald F. Klein (Author), Paul H. Wender (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 1993 | ISBN-10: 0195072790 | ISBN-13: 978-0195072792 | Edition: 1

Recent studies have found that one woman in five, and one man in ten, will suffer from depression or manic depression sometime during the course of their lives. This is a disturbing statistic, but there is hope, because more and more evidence has surfaced to indicate that many psychiatric disorders are biological diseases that can be successfully treated with medication. Most people, however, know little about these recent findings. They don't know how to tell if the depression they are suffering from is biological or not, nor what they can do to recover from it if it is.
In Understanding Depression, eminent psychiatrists Donald Klein and Paul Wender offer a definitive guide to depressive illness--its causes, course, and symptoms. They clarify the difference between depression (which is a normal emotion) and biological depression (which is an illness), and include several self-rating tests with which readers can determine whether or not they should seek psychiatric evaluation to determine if they have a biological depressive illness. They describe the symptoms of biological depression, among them loss of energy, changes in eating habits, sleep disturbances, decreased sex drive, restlessness, poor concentration and indecisiveness, and increased use of intoxicants and drugs. And they paint a clear picture of how depressive illness can affect people's lives, using excerpts from patient histories to show the progress of each patient from the onset of depression to treatment and recovery. The authors also discuss the different types of treatment available, including antidepressant drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychotherapy, and they examine the benefits and side effects of psychopharmacological drugs (including the new antidepressants, lithium, and the controversial Prozac), related disorders (such as panic attacks, atypical depression, seasonal affective disorder, and PMS), and how to get the right kind of help.
Most victims of biological depression often fail to seek help, whether out of guilt or ignorance, and many are often misdiagnosed by physicians or psychotherapists who fail to recognize the symptoms of the illness. Understanding Depression seeks to make the public (both lay and medical) aware of the issues of biological depression, providing a highly informed and readable guide to this much misunderstood disease.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is helpful is directing individuals to treatment, and nothing short of praise is deserved for advancing that goal. Conveying the remarkable contributions of medication to advances in care is critically important."--Alan E. Kazdin, Ph.D., in American Journal of Psychiatry

"Offers hope for relief from a terrifying affliction. And practical, step-by-step advice for finding that relief."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times "Understanding Depression conveys a new optimism derived from solid research and the existence of new possibilities for the treatment of depression....A very good source of information that will be extraordinarily useful to patients and their families."--Dr. Melvin Sabshin, Medical Director, American Psychiatric Association

"The public deserves clear, sound, valid, thorough and practical information on this all too common affliction. That two internationally recognized masters in forefront research can provide such a guide is a unique gift for which families, patients, and their caretakers can be grateful."--Daniel X. Freedman, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

About the Authors: Donald F. Klein is Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of Research at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Paul H. Wender is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Psychiatric Research at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He is the author of The Hyperactive Child,Adolescent and Adult, and coauthor of Mind, Mood, and Medicine with Donald F. Klein.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (January 14, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195072790
• ISBN-13: 978-0195072792
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,610,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DARKNESS INTELLIGIBLE, June 14, 1999

By 

Duodecimus - See all my reviews

This review is from: Understanding Depression: A Complete Guide to Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Paperback)

The handy book of Prof.Klein & Prof.Wender is readily comprehensible without lacking profundity and effectively assists a layperson with grasping the ominous and agonizing burden of depression darkening the lives of millions. The information it conveys is concise and relevant in any respect. In addition to the theoretical account of the depressive syndrome and its treatment the medical histories of several patients are vividly portrayed. Unfortunately there is one matter that affects my general contentment. The book should have a further subtitle: ...seen from a biologistic point of view! For the authors clearly go too far by claiming sole predominance of psychopharmacology over any kind of psychological psychotherapy (like cognitive or interpersonal therapy), whose practical value they are degrading to mere "comforting support" that "is not actually treating the underlying depression"(p.106). In a somewhat biased way they reduce the psycho-social impacts on the genesis of depression to secondary trigger-factors and deny them being genuine pathological causes. There can be no doubt that heredity plays an important role, but to treat the considerable moulding influence of nurture and socialisation on the individual person as marginal and minor remarks upon a purely neuro-physiological etiology of the insidious mood disease, focusing almost exclusively on genetic determination, is surely inadequate and exceeds the actual explanatory and therapeutic skills of bio-psychiatry at the end of the 20th-century. The book's sophistication notwithstanding, a bit more self-critical modesty and cooperative fairness against the so-called 'communicative therapies` and their verifiable usefulness would have redounded to the authors' scientific credit.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I do not hate, I am not alone, I am depressed, December 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding Depression: A Complete Guide to Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Paperback)

It was with initial fear that I read the book. However, as reading progressed I was able to identify with so many cases and situations.

You see, no one would every imagen, not even I, that I was depressed. During work, and at home my responsibilities would require me to have a smile on my face, be positive, give great advice to others, be there for everyone.

And yet, during those moments, my moments alone, I realized and would tell myself how unhappy I was, how much I did NOT LOVE ANYONE, not my husband, not my children, not even my ailing mother, who had a terminal illness. I couldn't be intimate and intense, everything was superficial, I felt all alone.

Upon reading the book I realized that I was not an evil, cold person without feelings, I was in fact in some sort of depression. The book gave excellent advice on how to identify what stage I might be in.

I read the book as many times as I need to review and remind myself that I can somehow overcome these feelings.

I am not "cured", but the book has wonderful advise and guidance enabling me to identify where my feelings are coming from and how I can help myself.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DARKNESS INTELLIGIBLE, June 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding Depression: A Complete Guide to Its Diagnosis and Treatment (Paperback)

The handy book of Prof.Klein & Prof.Wender is readily comprehensible without lacking profundity and effectively assists a layperson with grasping the ominous and agonizing burden of depression darkening the lives of millions. The information it conveys is concise and relevant in any respect. In addition to the theoretical account of the depressive syndrome and its treatment the medical histories of several patients are vividly portrayed. Unfortunately there is one matter that affects my general contentment. The book should have a further subtitle: ...seen from a biologistic point of view! For the authors clearly go too far by claiming sole predominance of psychopharmacology over any kind of psychological psychotherapy (like cognitive or interpersonal therapy), whose practical value they are degrading to mere "comforting support" that "is not actually treating the underlying depression"(p.106). In a somewhat biased way they reduce the psycho-social impacts on the genesis of depression to secondary trigger-factors and deny them being genuine pathological causes. There can be no doubt that heredity plays an important role, but to treat the considerable moulding influence of nurture and socialisation on the individual person as marginal and minor remarks upon a purely neuro-physiological etiology of the insidious mood disease, focusing almost exclusively on genetic determination, is surely inadequate and exceeds the actual explanatory and therapeutic skills of bio-psychiatry at the end of the 20th-century. The book's sophistication notwithstanding, a bit more self-critical modesty and cooperative fairness against the so-called 'communicative therapies` and their verifiable usefulness would have redounded to the authors' scientific credit.