Depression isn’t a one-time disaster in a life relationship. You think you’re through the great crisis, but little by little you feel the weight pressing down again. The stone face that wordlessly says “I can’t let you in” is back. It kept coming back to me and my wife for decades, and each time it […]

The more I get into the research on antidepressants, the more questions I have. In the last post, I raised issues about the endless search for the right medication; the discouraging record of relapse after becoming symptom-free; and the puzzling primacy of antidepressant treatment for an illness with complex causes that go way beyond biology.

Those questions are only the starters. I have even greater concern about long-term antidepressant treatment. Most psychiatrists consider it necessary for severe, recurrent illness, but others – apparently a small minority – are speaking out about adverse effects of using these drugs for prolonged periods.

If you’re depressed, you will get a prescription for an antidepressant, sooner or later. In fact, medication is likely to be the first treatment you receive, perhaps the only one. Most people are fine with that. They want to feel better fast, and medication seems like the best route. Primary care physicians and psychiatrists prescribe […]

It’s like depression in one way. People don’t understand grief for a lost pet unless they’ve been there. We’re there now, once again. A couple of years ago, I updated an early post about grieving the death of an Australian shepherd who had been with us for 14 years. She’d done her shepherdly duty in […]

The need for an innovative treatment like Well-Being Therapy hits you hard when you learn a bit about relapse. It happens – a lot. In fact, the majority of people who recover from depression will relapse in the months or perhaps years following the end of symptoms. Medications don’t prevent it, neither does cognitive behavioral […]

Doing the exercises in Mary Ellen Copeland’s The Depression Workbook is the only way to get its full value as a self-help recovery resource. A workbook is as useful as you make it. You can skim to get the gist, dismiss it as too basic or obvious to help you, and put it down. Or […]