Amazon.com: The Wisdom of Depression: A Guide to Understanding and Curing Depression Using Natural Medicine: Jonathan G. Zuess: Books

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
"Depression is a quest for vision; its essence is transformation," begins Wisdom of Depression, a book with a unique slant. According to psychiatrist Jonathan Zuess, "depression can be a natural and healthy response ... designed to enhance your abilities to overcome difficult emotional challenges." Half of this book describes natural therapies for mild cases, allowing the person's internal healing processes, creative life energy, and spiritual journey to flourish. Understanding the importance of dreams is essential, says Zuess: dreams may be our version of vision quests. Depressed people dream almost twice as much as other people, and enter the dream state unusually rapidly. Two other keys are learning to see with "the eyes of the soul" and expressing creativity.

Temporary depression, says Zuess, "can help us to dive deep into ourselves, to restructure our inner being, and come to a new way of understanding and living in the world." According to Zuess, depression only becomes an illness when it goes seriously wrong and doesn't resolve itself naturally, developing into major depressive disorder. In this case, he advocates a medical diagnosis, talk therapy, nutritional supplements, exposure to early morning light, and either conventional antidepressant drugs or herbal alternatives--all of which he discusses in detail. --Joan Price --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
To a topic about which so much has already been written, psychiatrist Zuess (The Natural Prozac Program) brings an astonishingly fresh view. His holistic approach recognizes depression as "a natural and healthy response" to "difficult emotional challenges," a "built-in healing mechanism." Unless this healing process is subverted in some way, its outcome, Zuess says, is "inner transformation," as sufferers "emerge from it stronger, healthier, and more in touch with their wise inner self." But Zuess admits that subversion is possible, and that the depressed response sometimes evolves into illness ("major depressive disorder") rather than being resolved. Only then does he advocate the powerful drugs (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.) most conventional psychiatrists offer as a first and often singular treatment. Instead, Zuess proposes use of the natural herb St. John's Wort. For all forms of mild to severe depression, he also suggests a program that includes a physical examination, exercise, sunlight, herbs, vitamins, nutrition, psychotherapy, play, dream analysis, and meditation and relaxation techniques. He also teaches an excellent step-by-step method for creative problem-solving. Offering a knowledgeable examination of the myriad treatments for the epidemic affliction of depression, Zuess's noteworthy book also delivers a brisk introduction to the holistic view of medicine in general.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
DEPRESSION is a quest for vision; its essence is transformation. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
depressed response, people with depression, melatonin supplements, ma

The Wisdom of Depression: A Guide to Understanding and Curing Depression Using Natural Medicine (Paperback)

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