Understanding Depression: What We Know and What You Can Do About It [Paperback]

J. Raymond DePaulo Jr. (Author), Leslie Alan Horvitz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471430307 | ISBN-13: 978-0471430308 | Publication Date: May 22, 2003 | Edition: 1

From a leading medical expert at Johns Hopkins, here is an up-to-the-minute, definitive guide to what s known about depression and how it can be treated.

Around ten percent of North Americans suffer from depression at some point -- and more than half haven t even sought help. Now, Dr. Raymond DePaulo, one of the world s foremost authorities on depression, provides a sensitive, thorough, and reassuring book for sufferers from depression and those who care about them. This practical guide for individuals with depression and their families -- the only totally comprehensive book in the market -- shows readers how to identify the problem, then directs them to the various forms of treatment, including medications, psychotherapy, support groups, and exercise. It is one of the few books to discuss in depth manic depression, the bipolar form of depression. Dr. DePaulo discusses both mainstream (the latest medications and talk therapies) and alternative paths and reveals the truth about the dangerous fallacies that abound about depression. Comprehensive, compassionate, and grounded in the very latest research into brain chemistry, psychology, and medications, this is a definitive, landmark roadmap to one of the most devastating -- and common -- mental illnesses.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"No one system, organ, or other factor is responsible for depression not one steroid, not one gene, not one neurotransmitter, and not a lesion on one side of the brain or the other. What we seem to have is... a stew with lots of different and exotic ingredients." So explains DePaulo (How to Cope with Depression), psychiatry professor and director of the Affective Mental Disorders Clinic at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, in this thoughtful, exhaustive reference on depression for general readers. DePaulo covers all aspects of the illness what it feels like; who tends to have it (women are two or three times more likely to be diagnosed than men, not necessarily the same thing); the biology of depression; possible courses of therapy; and psychopharmacology. DePaulo also discusses bipolar disorder (manic depression), and he covers both mainstream and alternative treatments. He believes doctors should involve family and friends of the patient (which, though ideal, is probably impractical for doctors on most health-care plans), and explains how the children and other family members of those with depression are affected by the disease. The chapters on finding the right treatment and how doctors make diagnoses will be extremely useful for those suffering from the disease. Though some of the writing is a touch sloppy and clunky, readers will find this an invaluable resource. (Mar.)40-year-old organization that supports brain research.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

..".thoughtful, exhaustive reference on depression... readers will find this an invaluable resource."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471430307
• ISBN-13: 978-0471430308
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #599,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 12, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Understanding Depression: What We Know and What You Can Do About It (Hardcover)

This is not a bad book, all in all. It covers a lot of useful territory, and for someone recently diagnosed who doesn't know a lot about depression, it might be a decent place to start. But, for those of us who are not starting from scratch, this book doesn't add much, if anything, to better books already out, and it falls short of the mark in some important ways.

My gripes with this book fall into two main categories. First, the book lacks detail in critical areas. For example, in the section on medications, there is only a passing reference to the sexual side effects of the SSRIs, and there is no discussion of how patients can deal with that problem -- i.e. reduce dosage, switch to another medication, augment the SSRI with another drug, etc. The author should know that sexual side effects like anorgasmia and reduced libido affect a huge percentage of people who take SSRIs, and that these side effects diminish the quality of many patients' lives and create serious compliance problems. I'm shocked that this important subject is given such cursory treatment. The section on meds also lacks details concerning dosages, augmentation, and withdrawal, important topics all. So much for the book jacket promise of a "cutting edge" discussion of medications! At the same time, the book is fairly long, and probably not an easy read for someone truly suffering from depression. If a reader is expected to plow through this much text, he or she should at least be rewarded with more detail and "state of the art" information, as promised.

Second, there are some pretty egregious errors in the medication sections. The charts covering various meds are a great idea, and they could be very useful, but they are replete with mistakes. Drug names are misspelled ("maclobemide" instead of moclobemide, "tobomax" instead of Topomax, for example) and the generic and brand names are sometimes flip-flopped (see "tobomax" and Lamictal for example). There is just no excuse for the sloppy, inaccurate charts. Didn't SOMEBODY who knew SOMETHING about these meds PROOFREAD this section? I really couldn't recommend this book to someone suffering from depression knowing that there are significant, obvious errors like this. I'd lack confidence that the rest of the book was more carefully written and edited.

I should confess that I was induced to pick up this book because of the promise of "cutting edge" info on meds, so that's where I started reading. The other sections, which I skimmed, looked pretty run of the mill, although I might feel differently upon a closer reading -- which won't be happening due to the other flaws noted above.

There is some good information here and perhaps the book will appeal to some readers. But, in my view, the book has some significant flaws, and it really doesn't add anything to a field that's already fairly crowded with better books.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Biased View on Treating Depression, January 29, 2005

By 

Bohdan Kot (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Depression: What We Know and What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

"Understanding Depression" is a clear and concise view of the illness through the eyes of "a psychiatrist who has seen in consultation, teaching, research, and treatment settings some 8,000 people with clinical depression and manic-depressive illness."

Dr. J. Raymond DePaulo Jr., M.D. is not only a psychiatrist, but also a psychiatry professor and the director of the Affective Mental Disorder Clinic at John Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. DePaulo has written a cogent book at what it means to suffer from depression and its possible causes. The psychiatrist also covers various aspects of manic-depression, but the lion's share of the book covers the illness of depression. Despite numerous advances in medical science, we are still not clear on what causes depression. Dr. DePaulo states, "No one system, organ, or other factor is responsible for depression - not one steroid, not one gene, not one neurotransmitter, and not a lesion on one side of the brain or the other. What we seem to have is...a stew with lots of different and exotic ingredients."

Where the book becomes shortsighted is within the sections dealing with the treatment of depression. The doctor advocates the use of traditional and cutting-edge medication as the cure for the vast majority of people throughout the book. It is not surprising that a psychiatrist does not go in depth concerning alternatives to drug therapies, but Dr. DePaulo covers only an astonishing 9 pages regarding alternative treatments such as exercise, nutrition, or talk therapy. In fact, large portions of the text read like a long pharmaceutical advertisement.

In the end, "Understanding Depression" is an invaluable guide to just that, understanding depression. However, the latter part of the subtitle, "What You Can Do About It," is a biased view of a psychiatrist whose only remedy are pills despite this "cure" entailing ineffectiveness and serious side-effects for a significant portion of the recipients.

Bohdan Kot

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stepping off point, July 16, 2006

By 

S. Rasco (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Understanding Depression: What We Know and What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

I have major depressive disorder. This book helped me understand the science of how the brain works with the various chemicals and drugs. As far as the experience or treatment, there wasn't much that I found personally relevant or didn't already know or that went into enough depth for me.

The book is a basic guide to understanding depression and does not offer any sort of cure or ideal treatment plan. That's not the point of it. The information is presented categorically and clearly with the resources cited, should you like to go further. The more common methods of treatment are presented with explanations of how they work and why.

However, this book was an excellent resource for the other people in my life who have been affected by my depression. They don't need or want to know all about the treatment options and experience in great depth. They do need to know some of the why's and how's and that it's not their fault. My parents found it to be quite helpful in understanding what was happening with me.