Customer Reviews

When Someone You Love is Depressed: How to Help Your Loved One Without Losing Yourself

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Someone I care for has just gone into a major clinical depression so I've been reading everything I could get my hands on to understand both him and the impact on me and our relationship. Of all the books I've read, this one was least helpful. Perhaps if I'd just hatched out of an egg and had no experience with life, it might give me information I didn't already have from living every day. It is so simple-minded, condescending and addresses the obvious so blandly - I felt it was a total waste of money. Anne Sheffield's book on Surviving when They're Depressed was a godsend - as was Terence Real's on men's depression. This one - gave me nothing at all. I don't usually slam things but this was useless in my opinion.

My lover has recently recognised that he suffers from depression and sought treatment for it. This book helped me to acknowledge and recognise many of my own strong emotional feelings, doubts and problems of the past months, that only now I'm realising were partly or wholly related to his depression and our inability to communicate about it without becoming overly emotional. It especially stresses the way that these reactions to depression are not only normal, but that you can put them to your benifit in the fight against depression. It stresses that suffering from someone else's depression is normal and that the solution is in working together, being more intimate and communicating better, rather than to think of giving up. It gives many tips and eyeopeners and things to hold on to when trying to change things, and stresses the power of communication. It does not have all the answers, but tries to make you stronger to find answers together. It gave me hope and reassured me about the strenght of our relation.

A disappointingly flat investigation into the complexities of depression. The tone is often condescending and assumes unneccessarily that the reader is not yet convinced that their loved one is indeed depressed. If you know that you are dealing with a depressed individual you'll need a more sophisticated book than this disappointing and glorified brochure.

This is a must-read book for anyone struggling to understand a loved one's depression. You'll learn the do's and don'ts of caregiving. But more than this, you'll learn the importance of trying to maintain your own mental health and sense of normalcy, in the face of what can be a debilitating illness impacting all members of the family. A lot of the advice is common sense, the kind of thing your loved one's psychiatrist might tell you--if only he or she weren't so pressed for time. Plus it's nice to know you can help your loved one without trying to be Superman or Superwoman. In fact, the first step to helping your loved one is to realize that you (and the rest of the family) have needs as well. So be nice to yourself and get this book. And then hang in there. Your family really CAN triumph over depression!

I found this book to be tremendously supportive when I was trying to help my fiance (now my husband) deal with his depression. Depression in a loved one is such a tricky, difficult thing to handle. This book gave me the background, information and courage to discuss the depression with my fiance and take action.

This book, written by two psychologists at Columbia, confronts the difficulties faced by friends and relatives of people who suffer from clinical depression. Although perhaps a bit longer and more repetitive than necessary, it presents balanced and thorough information about depression and treatment options. The authors also acknowledge how easy it is to get caught in a morass with a depressed person and offer concrete (if difficult) suggestions about how to escape from that stuckness.

My husband was prescribed Zoloft by his doctor for depression. I read several books on depression and treatment but nothing I read (until THIS book) helped me with how his depression was destroying our relationship. Its informative, intelligent and I learned a lot about how to help by husband AND myself. THANK YOU for this compassionate, smart and practical book ! I highly reccomend it.

This is a good resource, but a bit repetitive and not as user friendly as I would like. When dealing with a major depressive, you don't have the energy to wade through a lot of this book. A structure with "key info" and "in-depth knowledge", allowing the reader to get the most important information up front then go back for the details would be easier to use.

Ultimately, I wanted more focus on ME, the person who cares about a someone who is depressed, and less on the depressed person. There are a lot of good books out there for the depressed person. My expectations of this book were to have concrete ways to not "catch" the "contagious depression", to not "lose myself" as the subtitle suggests. After reading the book, I don't see how my interactions with my two majorly depressed friends over the last year could have been handled much differently. And I did catch their depression, and I did lose myself for a time. So while I feel more educated about depression in general, I still am looking for more and better ideas for protecting myself while still helping my loved ones.

By the time I found this book, I had already read numerous other books and articles on depression. Most of the books out there are written TO the depressed person, but usually (certainly in my experience) the depressed person isn't interested in reading books! The book stresses getting clinical help, but in many cases that person strongly resists clinical help!

I was looking for practical help for myself. How do I keep myself from slipping into depression, and making a bad situation worse? How can I pull my loved one out of their shell? How can I overcome that person's resistance to professional help? What is the best way to deal with a fit of anger or sadness caused by the disease? These questions are not answered by this book.

If this is your first book on depression, it might help you understand the disease better. But if you already know the basics, and are looking for help in caring for a person you love who has depression, it just doesn't deliver much.

I have a husband who is depressed and this book was extremely helpful. What I really like about it is that the advice is to help keep the marriage healthy too!