The best evidence for the treatment of depression has consistently been a combination of
talk therapy and psychopharmaceuticals. At least, in terms of relief and, ultimately, the derivation of strategies to cope when the “black dog” arrives once more at your doorstep. But even I, as a highly trained mental health specialist (smiles), don’t believe that talk therapy works for everyone; moreover, the use of drugs is vastly over-rated. Our dog was recently put onto a course of Prozac, so draw your own conclusions.
That said, drugs do work for so many and must be part of a treatment plan. Depression kills and nothing in life ought to result in capital punishment (well unless your name is Ted Bundy).
Those strategies referred to above can include things like exercise (a quick run around the block can relieve depression and anxiety faster than, say, Xanax), immersion in a fun and distracting hobby, and this thing we therapists call bibliotherapy. To that end, I will discuss some books that I have recommended to my clients over the years in hopes that you might find at least one of them useful.
“Bibliotherapy” refers to reading books to help alleviate mental health challenges such as acute anxiety and deep depression. Time and time again I see research that demonstrates how it can be an effective form of treatment.
Insofar as I don’t exactly make a living being a therapist, I don’t have an axe to grind (or, as they say, a “dog in this fight”) and can therefore say that sitting with a trained counselor is still the best defense and offense against the vagaries of depression. Until you can get in front of one, however, consider doing some bibliotherapy. It’s cheap, convenient, has no adverse side effects, and can really help.
And it helps to make you a better patient!
Background reading can work to familiarize yourself with the concepts surrounding depression and its treatments, including an understand of what therapists say and why they say it. Background reading can help to normalize your condition in the sense that you won’t feel so utterly alone: Plenty of people (in fact, most people) suffer depression from time to time. It’s part of the human condition and bibliotherapy will have you discarding the “woe is me” feelings in no time.
Plus, most therapists will assign one of the following books anyway, so why not get started on your own?
All of these books are in my library. Over the years, I have read them all and believe they helped immensely. And I read them again and again, especially when I feel a dark mood coming on.
We begin with a classic, Darkness Visible by William Styron, he of Sophie’s Choice fame. It’s about suicide and his brushes with “the most permanent of solutions to the most temporary of problems.” I found it sobering and a good reminder that nothing is so bad as to require capital punishment (except, as I said above, if you happen to be a serial killer).
One of the better authors in the field is David Burns. Years ago, he wrote Feeling Good. Now, he has an updated version called Feeling Great. I highly recommend it.
He repeats the oft cited and major factor contributing to depression, namely, that of “faulty thinking.” Simply put, Depressives (me, you) are often depressed because they see the world through an overly pessimistic lens that is quite candidly inaccurate. Things are never as bad we think they are. The great Greek philosopher Epictetus said it best: Man is not disturbed by events but by his view of events. The goal is to replace those faulty thoughts and replace them with ones that align more closely with reality.
Next up is On Depression by Nassir Ghaemi
What strikes me as salient in Ghaemi’s writing is the notion that life is chaos and all of us are doing are best to navigate that chaos and to bring a certain amount of order to our lives. Dr. Jordan Peterson speaks to this in his books about 12 Rules for Life: An antidote to Chaos.
This one isn’t a how-to manual on how to manage depression. Not at all. What it provides is a better, more holistic understanding of melancholy itself. Consequently, this book is helpful to me because it sets forth a completely different framework from which to think about depression.
But getting past melancholy is only half the battle. Indeed, all that it does is to get us to a neutral state. Why not then move the needle all the way over to happiness itself? This is what Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson is all about.
Like Burns, Hanson makes the case that our depression and, to a certain extent, our anxieties, is caused by “disordered thinking.” As put forth by Epictetus (see above), we all tend to focus on the negative. Depressed people (me, you) hyper-focus on the negative.
Dr. Hanson guides readers through a meditative practice (grounded in cognitive and neuroscience research) that helps individuals “rewire” their brains so that they’re less sensitive to the negative and more receptive to the positive in their lives. You accomplish that “rewiring” by internalizing the positive experiences you have throughout the day. His recommendation and his steps to recovery are basic to the entire idea of meditation. Check it out.
Even presidents of the United States aren’t immune. Take for example, Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong battle with what we now call depression. Not a self-help kind of book, Lincoln’s Melancholy helps to biographically “normalize” the dark mood that afflicted him rather frequently. Indeed, Lincoln’s melancholy was both a curse and a blessing. At some points in his life, depression drove President Lincoln to the brink of suicide.
Shenk also makes a compelling case that Lincoln’s depression helped him develop coping strategies and a realism about life that would allow him to lead the Union through the Civil War.
Learning about Lincoln’s life provides a real-life example of how you don’t have to “cure” your depression in order to live a successful life. Lincoln didn’t let his depression either define him or crush him, but instead mitigated, harnessed, and integrated the condition into something that made him a better leader and man.
Undoing Depression by Richard O’Connor is a good book. In it, he takes a rather holistic approach to treating and managing depression by making the case that it’s our habits that are most overlooked when understanding our moods. Indeed, we can actually get “good” at depression because we develop habits like faulty thinking or self-medicating with alcohol. Undoing Depression examines how these depression-deepening habits can prevent a person from experiencing healthy emotion.
A Liberated Mind, by Steven Hayes, shows us how to apply Hayes’ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to those streams of negative thoughts that engender depression.
Here I will admit to being somewhat biased. Dr. Hayes was an instructor of mine while doing both my master’s and doctoral work at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is a remarkable writer, teacher, and therapist. His ACT studies are seminal and urge us to accept our negative thoughts non-judgmentally and then to commit to disputing them systematically.
Based largely on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), ACT to some extent rejects the CBT-idea that negative thoughts are poison. They aren’t good for us, to be sure, but even a little bit of poison can be effective now and then (take for example the various vaccines we get, which are nothing more or less than the disease they purport to fight). ACT wants us to accept them, then hold them up to the light of day.
A Liberated Mind is a workbook. Check it out.
One last book is really a compendium of various articles published at a web site I like called The Art of Manliness. What with the war on “toxic masculinity” (whatever that is), manliness is akin to racism, being a Nazi, and generally a bad thing. I don’t agree. Being the best person you can be is essential and isn’t limited to just women. Men need some guidance, too.
The book includes a review of some of the more recent literature on depression, including causes and possible treatment modalities. I haven’t read it recently but when I first saw it several years back, I thought it pretty good. Leashing the Black Dog by Brett McKay.
