Recover Life from Depression

Fighting Back to Recover from Depression

Stories about the struggle to recover from depression tell of repeated efforts to find a way to live well despite the recurring burden of illness. For me the key lesson is that each person in these stories keeps trying, despite repeated setbacks. I recently came across a research study that says the same thing in more formal language: “[S]tudy findings suggest that constant effort aimed at positive transformation and growth may underlie the whole process […] Read more »

Finding Self-Compassion through Focusing

Written by John Folk-Williams

Focusing is one of the few methods that has helped me understand depression as I experience it, well beyond the scope of clinical descriptions. It has also given me an approach to self-compassion that is more effective than the various meditations I have tried. As Eugene Gendlin acknowledges in Focusing, his self-help version of the method he developed, some people feel they must suffer the full feelings of their problems, including depression. To do anything […] Read more »

Depression Relapse and Resilience

Written by John Folk-Williams

Sometimes relapse into depression comes on like the weather, suddenly there, a change in the atmosphere you breathe and the temperature and moisture of the air around you. I’ve been feeling that lately and find myself in the midst of a cool and sad stillness that draws my attention in with an almost magnetic force. I sit and stare at nothing as if it were the most important thing I had ever encountered. I become […] Read more »