I’ve made hope the centerpiece of this pair of posts because there’s such a powerful need for it after a depressed partner leaves. However unrealistic the hope may be, it’s necessary to take the place of pain and grief. The problem of a hope born of desperation is the risk of further shocks in the […]
Psychotherapy
Are You Leaving Anything Out When You Talk about Your Depression?
What are you referring to when you say, I’m depressed? Where do you draw the line between symptoms of depression and everything else that you consider to be just who you are? I ask because this word, “depression” seems to be losing its boundaries, if it ever had any. This isn’t an academic question. I […]
Reading as a Form of Depression Therapy
Have you ever heard of bibliotherapy? I’m always trying to identify ways to start working on recovery from depression, but I never thought much about one of the first steps I took – reading. I was surprised to learn that reading books for medical treatment dates to World War II, when it proved effective for […]
Is Your Partner’s Depression Changing You?
Over and over, I find stories online about the transformation of a loving partner, most often a man, into a depressed stranger. I know what that’s about because I have been that stranger. I went through a period of withdrawing emotionally from my wife and blaming her and just about everything else for my problems. […]
Why Therapy Can Work: Ideas from Brain Research
Brain research is one of those many scientific fields that I’ll never know much about, but I find it important to get even a limited understanding of the direction of recent findings. It helps me to know, for example, that emotions are generated unconsciously through multiple brain systems before anything gets to awareness. As I […]
Trying to Explain Recovery from Depression
A friend recently asked me if I could help him understand the change for the better I’ve experienced in the last couple of years. At the same time, a reader here asked if I could elaborate on what I mean by taking charge or putting myself at the center of my own recovery – an […]
