I started learning about patterns of recovery when my mother survived two heart attacks but died twice before her death. That’s the way she saw it. Her heart stopped both times, but she fought her way back. The second heart-stopping attack occurred during an operation for a different problem. She was 94. I only learned […]
Recovery
Recovery from Depression: the Power of Expectation
Recovery from depression depends in part on what you believe is possible for the future. If you are to recover at all, you have to take action at some point. It could be a series of small steps about your daily routine – eating breakfast, walking out the door to get fresh air and natural […]
Why Writing Helps Heal Depression – 2
As I discussed in this earlier post, writing helps heal the depression that dominated decades of my life. That post reviewed James Pennebaker’s research, as summarized in Opening Up, but said little about how I go about writing to confront the most powerful feelings and maintain the progress I’ve made in recovery. For writing is […]
Why Writing Can Help Heal Depression – 1
The subtitle of Storied Mind used to be Writing to Recover Life from Depression, and I’ve often wondered why it is specifically that writing can help heal depression, especially when so many other approaches to treatment have failed me. When I was just starting this blog, I wrote about the fear of writing or even […]
Depression Therapy: Lonely Talk in a Crowded Room
Therapy for depression usually meant talking about the world I was seeing, the thoughts I had, the pain I felt, the judgments about me I projected onto others – all me, all the time. Once, I was talking to a therapist in that way when I sensed a crowd of people filling the room. The […]
Psychological Flexibility, Well-Being and Doubts about Recovery
I’ve been wondering: How could it be that I have recovered from depression but still deal with symptoms almost every day? Can both things be true? Recently I’ve come across new ways of thinking about well-being and psychological flexibility that help explain this paradox. Finding these ideas couldn’t be more timely because doubts about recovery […]
