Recover Life from Depression

How Setting Boundaries Helped Me Heal

My getting depressed after a cancer operation almost ended our marriage. It was the blow that forced my wife to remind me of the boundaries I couldn’t afford to ignore. I had been in high spirits for the operation and right through the recovery period. My wife and I had been especially close during that time. I had healed, emotionally and physically, with her support and love. We had been really together then. But it […] Read more »

Fear of Change in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Written by John Folk-Williams

One of the interesting things about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is that you can’t think about it too much. You have to do it. Hence the acronym ACT, to be spoken as the word. If you try to understand it with your mind alone, you’ll get stuck because the mind has too many blinders. I recall my encounter with a pit bull a few years ago because the incident seems like a good metaphor for […] Read more »

The Delusions of Depression

Written by John Folk-Williams

I’ve had several moments in recovery when I realized that things I assumed to be true were really delusions of depression. Some were long-held beliefs about myself, others were briefly held convictions that were too far from reality to maintain for long. Psychiatrists probably wouldn’t call these delusions of the sort linked to psychosis, but when I recall how often they dominated my mind, I need a strong word to capture their chilling effect on […] Read more »