Every list of top books on depression is highly personal, and mine may be more so than most. I’ve left out several of the standards you’ll find in other lists and added others that cover far more than this one condition because they’ve helped me make progress in recovery. They’ve deepened my understanding of healing […]
Healing
Changing Core Beliefs of Depression
Getting well depends in part on changing core beliefs of depression that often begin to develop early in life. According to recent neuroscience findings, putting together a narrative about who you are is one of the most important parts of mental life. The narrative integrates many dimensions of mind: memory, emotion, thinking, sense perception, awareness, […]
A Never-Ending Family Story Has to End
My never-ending family story has always been a hard scene in which I am very young and small and terrified. I’m staring at my parents and brother locked in combat. There may be no action, it usually flashes at me in tableau form, but there is plenty of rage, fear and hurt. There is a […]
How Do We Change in Psychotherapy?
The first session I ever had with a psychiatrist proved to me that I could achieve a real change through psychotherapy. While in college, I had been immobilized by panic attacks and was desperate to get help. I spent three hours with a psychiatrist deeply engaged in the confusing mass of experience I needed to […]
The Delusions of Depression
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 […]
The Costly Mercy of Lost Feelings
I’ve been working on a new ebook about recovery and came across this early post on lost feelings. It resonated with me so I thought I would post it again in this revised version. A breakthrough to healing can come at the most unexpected time. The other night I was trying to divert myself by […]
