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DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE: WINNING THE BATTLE WITHOUT DRUGS
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Music Books > Melanie B > Item 9
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DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE: WINNING THE BATTLE WITHOUT DRUGS
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by A. B. Curtiss
Sales Rank: 406431
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List Price: $33.95
$27.40
At Amazon
on 12-29-2007.
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Features
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Hyperion October 3, 2001
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0786866292
ISBN-13: 978-0786866298
Product Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
In overwritten, overlong text, Curtiss (Time of the Wild), a cognitive behavioral therapist, author of children's books and contributing writer to the New York Times, etc., explains how to overcome depression without drugs. The suggestions herein stem chiefly from her personal experience: her periods of deep depression, followed by manic incidents that led her, for example, to launch poorly conceived business ventures that lost money. She also, somewhat capriciously, left her husband and children for a year to live in an ashram. She explains how she freed herself from years of ups and downs by following her own program of "directed thinking." According to Curtiss, as soon as one becomes aware of depressed or manic feelings, one must "as an act of will, replace the accidental, unchosen thoughts that have caused the problem with new, positive, neutral or commonsense thoughts or actions." Even in cases resulting from chemical imbalances in the brain, contends Curtiss, it's simply a question of learning how to employ the mind. She feels strongly that prescription drugs coupled with "psychologized thinking" (i.e. the Freudian premise that "the mind and the self are one and the same") will only mask, not help with depression. Curtiss also emphasizes the importance of traditional family values versus the current pursuit of individual happiness. However one feels about Curtiss's ideas, "directed thought" comes off as a murky offshoot of standard therapy; wading through the author's convoluted thought processes may cause rather than cure depression. Radio interviews.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A number of recent self-help titles enable sufferers to try cognitive behavioral techniques, including Joseph Luciani's Self-Coaching: How To Heal Anxiety and Depression (LJ 4/15/01). Kaplan and Turkington's Making the Antidepressant Decision is a new edition of their Making the Prozac Decision (Lowell House, 1994). The name change accurately reflects the work's coverage of all current antidepressant medications as well as indications for taking them and their side effects. While most of this edition isn't new, a few very important additions make it worth the low price, including a discussion of the newest Prozac-like drug, Celexa, and a chapter on St. John's Wort. Recommended for public libraries. Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I am giving this two stars because I think it merits an extra one for making the radical statement that depression and manic-depression can be managed without drugs. I do agree that many people get trapped in self-defeating cycles of depression and mania, which could probably be broken if they allowed it as a possibility. However, I think that she veers close to Tom Cruise territory, claiming that anyone who resorts to antidepressants is "weak". I've dealt with depression since childhood, but at this point I can't tell if it was genetic or if I just learned the habits and continued to reinforce them in myself into adulthood. It may be a question of the chicken or the egg here. Ultimately I don't think it matters and I tend to agree with the author that cognitive-behavioral therapy can help and that there isn't any proof of such a thing as "chemical imbalance" causing mental illness. There isn't. The fact that brains of depressed people are different than brains of "healthy" people doesn't prove that something organic within the person's body caused the depression. It could just as well be the opposite, that it is the depression that changes the brain. What bothered me most about this book, though, is that I tried reading it twice more than a year apart and both times got extremely bored by about halfway through the book. Reading about the stupid, rude or irresponsible things the author did before she figured out that she could manage her own mania and depression was not helpful to me in the least. The redundant writing style cried out desperately for an editor. The author also sounded tediously self-aggrandizing as well, leading me to believe that she was in one of her admitted fits of mania when she wrote it. In short, if she's trying to convince anyone that they can stabilize their own moods and emotions, her book should seem like she has done so for herself. I'd love to see a book like this in the hands of an author who didn't feel the need to go on for hundreds of pages about herself, as I think the book contains a good idea. The poor execution here makes me unable to recommend the book to anyone else.
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DEPRESSION IS A CHOICE: WINNING THE BATTLE WITHOUT DRUGS
Updated on 12-29-2007.
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