I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (Paperback)

~ (Author) "When I stand beside troubled fathers and sons I am often flooded with a sense of recognition..." (more)
Key Phrases: covertly depressed men, empathic reversal, covert depression, Balance Prevails, Learning Intimacy, Crossing the Wasteland (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When Terrence Real was studying to be a therapist, he accepted the notion that women suffered depression at rates several times that of men. Now he believes that conventional wisdom is wrong, that there has been a great cultural cover-up of depression in men. Real is convinced of the existence of a mental illness that is passed from fathers to sons in the form of rage, workaholism, distanced relationships from loved ones, and self-destructive behaviors ranging from stupid choices at work and in love to drug and alcohol abuse. Men reading I Don't Want to Talk About It will probably recognize themselves in every chapter, while women will recognize their partners--and, of course, both sexes will see their fathers in a new light.

From Publishers Weekly

Hidden male depression is the focus of this clear, compelling book by a Massachusetts family psychotherapist who specializes in working with dysfunctional men. Because our culture socializes boys to mask feelings of vulnerability, he says, they bury deep within themselves damaging childhood trauma and its ensuing depressive effects when they become men. This strongly reasoned study starts out with an illustration of the "toxic legacy" that is passed, often for generations, from father to son, with each chapter adding another piece to the complex face. The lucid exposition of ideas is made more vivid through dramatizing. Real uses "composite" cases, so no actual person is depicted except the author himself. One of the most arresting aspects of the book is the autobiographical thread that he weaves throughout. Real's central concern is what he calls covert depression, a pain-filled, inchoate state that may or may not eventually erupt into overt depression. The book is wise beyond its stated scope: in setting up a model for the nature, etiology and treatment of male depression, Real ends up offering-with some gender variants-an almost universal paradigm. BOMC, QPB and One Spirit alternates.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (March 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684835398
• ISBN-13: 978-0684835396
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,404 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #5 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Gender Studies > Men
  #15 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Aging > Depression
  #28 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > Mental Illness

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE only book you need, April 1, 2003

By	Crazy Mel W "crazymel" (San Marcos, CA United States) - See all my reviews

When I say I suffered in my depression I should say "we" because I dragged a lot of people down with me. I did therapy, read books, took medications. This book helped me, I believe, more than any other single thing that I did.

Mr. Real writes from experience and with knowledge from both sides of the couch. As he composites out and recreates therapy sessions, you, as a depressed man, should see yourself. You can see where you've been and get a preview of where you're going.

Each chapter ends on an upbeat. It does not end on a sappy upbeat. This is no Stuart Smalley book, no pop psychology here. It is a real upbeat, real hope on a deep level. I actually copied paragraphs from this text onto my own paper and carried them along with me.

It takes courage not to be depressed. This book makes this clear. It also makes it abundantly clear that it can be done.

80 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real men., May 3, 2002

By	Headbang8 (Bogenhausen, Munich) - See all my reviews

I've struggled with depression since childhood. I've read volume after volume on the subject. Most of it, however earnest, just blows smoke.

This one's different. Real is the only therapist I've read who captures the anger behind depression--dammit, harm has been done to innocent people, and the pain they suffer is unrecognised, devalued or morally stigmatised becuse the sufferers happen to be male.

The rage they feel against the perpetrator(s)never gets a focus. After all, it would be focussed on the people who cared for you as you grew. What does one do if the hand that beats you is the hand that feeds you? You do what you need to survive the moment. You stay fed. Only later do you fail to thrive.

Terrence Real focusses his own rage on this injustice--and rage, indeed, he does. He suffered the abuse that leads to depression, and now helps men face it squarely.

Like an ugly scab, healing ain't always pretty. If you never properly clean and dress a wound, grotesque scars disfigure you. Real tells the stories of men who have put the time, effort and care into healing. It ain't easy. But having done so, their scars heal clean, and a happier life begins.

Other so-called self-help books (the "inner-child" movement springs to mind) seem to argue that learning to love your scars is the road to happiness. Poppycock.

(I might also add that this is less a self-help book than a political and moral treatise. If sufferers find it helpful, that's a by-product.)

Personally, I think Real lets women off the hook too easily in this book. Having endured the female-dominated "caring professions" to effect my own cure, I think Real ought to empahsise the complicity of women in the patriarchy (which he rightly labels as damaging to both sexes).

Even quite enlightened women patronise men who try to be strong and scorn them when they allow themselves to be weak. In their effort to stamp out male aggression, they demean male strength--a strength which women who wish to heal might well wish they had.

Real is the first scholar I've read to point out that the patriarchy actually harms men more than it harms women. It certainly proves fatal more often.

He is the first therapist I know to make a case that men are MORE emotional than women; not the insensitive droogs of feminist caricature.

Against a background of shallow, ineffectual, touchy-feely self-help gurus, Real stands out as a straight talker. To borrow a phrase from the patriarchy, he's results-oriented. And that ain't a bad thing.

Real? An aptly named author.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every man and woman should read this book., October 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (Hardcover)

"I Just Don't Want to Talk About It" by Terrence
Real may just save my marriage and give me
back the man I married 33 years ago. As I read
this book, I cried. My husband and I were on
every page. Finally, I understand the hell
we've been living in for so long. A psychotherapist for twenty
years, author Terrence Real exposes the pain
the isolation, the workaholism,the disconnection
that signal covert male depression.
He is conservative in his estimates. I would say
most men suffer from depression at some point in their lives.
And they suffer longer because they have been
taught to repress, to deny. Thank you, Terry.
I'm bringing your book to our next counseling session.
We may live happily ever after, after all.