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Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression
 
 
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Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression [Hardcover]

James S. Gordon M.D. (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)


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Book Description

June 12, 2008
A groundbreaking, inspiring, and practical guide to healing depression without the use of antidepressants, from world-renowned, Harvard trained psychiatrist Dr. James S. Gordon

Each year, as many as twenty million Americans are diagnosed with clinical depression. Tens of millions more have low energy or feel unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives. And each year, American doctors write 189 million prescriptions for antidepressant drugs for these people. Dr. James Gordon, a Harvard Medical School-educated psychiatrist who founded and directs The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., has been helping his patients find their way out of the darkness of depression for the past forty years. He has worked with everyone from high-powered Washington politicians to Hurricane Katrina victims, from overstressed doctors, lawyers, and stay-at-home moms to orphans from war-ravaged Kosovo and Gaza. Each one of Dr. Gordon’s patients is unique, but all suffer from some level of depression, and none are getting relief from the antidepressant drugs their doctors keep prescribing or the psychotherapy they’ve been receiving.

One of our country’s most distinguished psychiatrists and a pioneer in integrative medicine, Dr. Gordon believes that depression is not an end point, a disease over which we have no control. It is a sign that our lives are out of balance, that we’re stuck. It’s a wake-up call and the start of a journey that can help us become whole and happy, one that can change and transform our lives. Unstuck is a practical, easy-to-use guide explaining the seven stages of Dr. Gordon’s approach and the steps we can take to exert control over our own lives and find hope and happiness. Unstuck is designed for anyone who is suffering from depression, from mild subclinical depression (“the blues”) to its severest forms.

Dr. Gordon shows us how doctors and patients alike have come to depend on antidepressants, and how these drugs have disappointed so many. He then carefully links each of his seven stages to helpful suggestions for relieving depression’s symptoms. Using dramatic and inspiring examples from the patients he has worked with over the years, he explains the useful, mood-healing benefits of: food and nutritional supplements; Chinese medicine; movement, exercise, and dance; psychotherapy, meditation and guided imagery; and spiritual practice and prayer. He concludes each chapter with a carefully designed Prescription for Self-Care, guidelines to help each person play an active, effective role in their own healing. The result is Unstuck, an incredibly thoughtful, practical, and meditative guide to the difficult but rewarding journey out of depression. James


Editorial Reviews

Review

"A world expert offers a practical proven guide to finding hope and happiness in the ashes of depression. Unstuck is superb."
-Mehmet Oz, MD, author of the YOU guides

"In this extraordinary book, Dr. James S. Gordon, a pioneer in integrative medicine, offers practical ways to climb out of the dark psychological dungeon of depression. Both therapist and patient will benefit hugely from reading this book."
-Deepak Chopra, author of Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore

Unstuck is truly remarkable. Dr. James S. Gordon has taken forty years of experience in psychiatry and distilled it down into one brilliant book that can help people suffering from depression or ordinary unhappiness and confusion. In this warm, practical and user-friendly book, Dr. Gordon takes great care to remind us how much power we have to change our own lives.”
-Dean Ornish, MD, author of The Spectrum

“Using an integrative perspective and drawing on traditional wisdom, psychiatrist James Gordon guides you through a whole-person journey out of depression that addresses the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the problem, not just a possible chemical imbalance in the brain. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who feels stuck."
-Andrew Weil, MD, Author of Healthy Aging and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health

“Depression is not what we think it is. Ideas that can change a culture come only a few times in a generation. Unstuck is such an idea, the answer to the one of the major causes of disability that has, until now, had only poor solutions. Dr. James Gordon, a pioneering voice in medicine for 40 years, has provided a practical and transformative guide for the suffering millions with depression. If you want to find out the real causes of depression and how to cure them, read this book.”
-Mark Hyman, MD, New York Times best selling author of UltraMetabolism

"There is so much offered here to those fortunate enough to make this book's acquaintance. Jim Gordon is a skilled open-hearted writer and observer who brings his readers with him on a healing journey of human understanding. Unstuck is a revelatory, passionately humane and thoroughly knowing guide for those who are troubled."
-Robert Coles, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities, Harvard Medical School, author of the Children of Crisis series

Unstuck is the most exciting book on transforming depression I’ve ever read. Before you reach for a drug, read this book to feel better. This book is EXACTLY what this over-medicated country needs right now. Unstuck is fabulous. Thank you Jim Gordon for writing it.”
-Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom, The Wisdom of Menopause, and Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

"Dr. Gordon offers a fresh, holistic approach for what he calls the journey out of depression. While he is educated in Western medicine and has worked all over the world with victims of trauma, Dr. Gordon is also savvy about Chinese medicine, Indian healing traditions and Buddhist meditation. His treatments involve work with the body, the mind, and the spirit. Unstuck is one of the books that will help us break free from our compartmentalized ideas about mental health and our American tendency to pathologize ordinary life experiences. I recommend this for anyone struggling with darkness."
-Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Letters to a Young Therapist

About the Author

James S. Gordon, MD, is the founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Gordon is a clinical professor in the departments of psychiatry and family medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and the former chairman of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Dr. Gordon, who has been a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, as well as to leading professional journals, is the author of Manifesto for a New Medicine and the author or editor of ten other books.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; First Edition edition (June 12, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 9781594201660
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594201660
  • ASIN: 1594201668
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

32 Reviews
5 star:
 (23)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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178 of 186 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Bible for Depression Recovery, June 18, 2008
This review is from: Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression (Hardcover)
*****
This book, written by a psychiatrist who himself has suffered from depression, will be controversial because it describes depression as "the beginning of an unfolding process of self-awareness, not the grim end of a disease process". The author challenges the prevailing model of depression as a medical illness, basing everything upon current brain research and current medical research dealing with depression. This is a very, very important book, one that every person who deals with depression should read.

If you are looking for a quick and dirty way of dealing with depression and want to take medication only, and from then on never think about depression or your life again beyond renewing your prescription, you would do better by NOT buying this book. Recovery from depression does take some work. On the other hand, if you want to know more about current research with SSRI's and view medication as only a part of your approach to dealing with depression, you should DEFINITELY buy this book. If you are like me and wish that you didn't have to take medication at all, and are willing to do some work to recover, you should absolutely buy it---you will love it and benefit greatly from it as I have.

If you want to know what research truly says about SSRI's it's here and more besides. Step-by-step techniques and tools. Examples that I could relate to. Integrating diet and exercise--what is shown to work and what doesn't. Supplementation. Support. Meditation. Movement. Awareness. Obstacles on your journey. Spirituality. There is a chapter on "the dark night of the soul", which includes dealing with suicidal thoughts. Alternative practitioners and alternative supplementation (including SamE, St. John's Wort, and rhodiola. There are huge appendices filled with resources to help you to find out more about every aspect of depression recovery. And of course, for clinicians and others, there are references to formal studies.

"Unstuck" is a resource manual---a bible, even---for depression recovery. It is important for those who have depression and for those who love them and for others who want to know what experts now know about all of the approaches to depression recovery.

Highly recommended.
*****

UPDATE 7-14-08: I just wanted to add that I in no way disparage people who need or want a "medication only" approach for depression. Apparently my review has given this impression to at least one person, and I regret this. Perhaps this will be clearer: if you are adamant that you want pharmaceuticals, and ONLY pharmaceuticals, and you don't care about any integrative adjuvant approaches, AND you don't care what any studies say about the medication you are taking, your money would be wasted by purchasing this book. If you are happy and cured of your depression, in your own estimation, then you are indeed fortunate and certainly would not want this book. You would not be or feel stuck, and thus would not want to be "unstuck".
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116 of 124 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Video review by Alan Cheuse of NPR's All Things Considered, June 30, 2008
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J. Knecht (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression (Hardcover)
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90 of 97 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Three stars = a little more than half right, February 4, 2009
This review is from: Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression (Hardcover)
Most if not all of the things Dr. Gordon recommends are excellent strategies not only for people who are mildly or moderately depressed (conditions that I think probably shouldn't be referred to as depression at all to avoid confusion), but for everyone else, too.

However, for those who are seriously and severely disabled by depression, but who still have just enough energy to read, I think you can get a more complete and balanced view of the situation with some additional or alternative material.

A good start would be reading the following articles by fellow depressive Therese Borchard (on the web - find through a search engine).
"Don't Get Stuck on "Unstuck": Depression Is Real, and Drugs Help Me"
"The Latest on Antidepressants: Be Careful Where You Get Your Facts"

Then, especially if you've read "Unstuck," I think you'll have truly balanced and thorough basis to make a recovery plan for yourself if you read (or listen to as an audio book) "Against Depression" by Peter Kramer.

A final caveat about Dr. Gordon's book: Several elements of his recommendations contain an underlying - sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much - suggestion that depression is fundamentally a character flaw, or something that can be eliminated simply through alterations in a defective worldview, etc.
It's true that everyone needs to take as much responsibility as possible for their own lives. Needless to say it's also true that a symptom of depression is negative and unhealthy thinking. But for people who have major depression it's not helpful to frame the problem in ways that might lead to even more self-recrimination. In fact, I think that can make the problem and the consequences far worse.

If you have serious depression, especially in repeat episodes, there is considerable science pointing toward a probability that you have a biological injury, not just a "weakness."
So here's an analogy: If you have a bullet in your foot, it really doesn't matter whether you shot yourself or whether someone else shot you, or whether someone handed you the gun and encouraged you to do it, etc. The injury is the same, and you need to get serious help before you bleed to death. And if you have serious depression, get serious help before your life ticks away in confusion and despair.

So the Gordon book may be helpful, or not, depending on you, your history, and your current situation.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
If you asked to see me as a doctor, to become my patient, I'd talk to you on the phone first. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
inner guide, soft belly, dynamic meditation, expressive meditations, journey through depression
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Safe Place, Dark Nights, United States, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Bob Coles, Jim Gordon, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, Aunt Grace
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Gordon's approach and Peter Kramer's "Against Depression" 5 Oct 1, 2009
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