Understanding Depression: What We Know and What You Can Do About It

✍ Scribed by J. Raymond DePaulo, Leslie Alan Horvitz, Kay Redfield Jamison

• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 305
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From a leading medical expert at Johns Hopkins, here is an up-to-the-minute, definitive guide to what s known about depression and how it can be treated.Around ten percent of North Americans suffer from depression at some point -- and more than half haven t even sought help. Now, Dr. Raymond DePaulo, one of the world s foremost authorities on depression, provides a sensitive, thorough, and reassuring book for sufferers from depression and those who care about them. This practical guide for individuals with depression and their families -- the only totally comprehensive book in the market -- shows readers how to identify the problem, then directs them to the various forms of treatment, including medications, psychotherapy, support groups, and exercise. It is one of the few books to discuss in depth manic depression, the bipolar form of depression. Dr. DePaulo discusses both mainstream (the latest medications and talk therapies) and alternative paths and reveals the truth about the dangerous fallacies that abound about depression. Comprehensive, compassionate, and grounded in the very latest research into brain chemistry, psychology, and medications, this is a definitive, landmark roadmap to one of the most devastating -- and common -- mental illnesses.

✦ Table of Contents

Understanding Depression What We Know and What You Can Do About It......Page 2
Contents......Page 4
Acknowledgments......Page 6
Foreword......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
Part One: Understanding Depression......Page 15
1 The Experience of Depression......Page 18
2 The Experience of Mania: Bipolar Disorder......Page 33
3 Who Is at Risk for Depression?......Page 45
4 Recognizing Depression in All Its Forms and Guises......Page 55
5 Stressful Events: When People Get Depressed......Page 73
Part Two: Unraveling the Secrets......Page 80
6 What Do We Know About the Brain?......Page 83
7 Genes and Depression: The Fateful Inheritance......Page 97
8 Hormones, Headaches, and Heart Attacks......Page 104
Part Three: Depression and Mania and Destructive Effects on the Whole Person......Page 113
9 Depression, Manic Depression, and Relationships......Page 115
10 Destructive Behavior......Page 129
11 Facing up to Suicide......Page 141
Part Four: Treatments for Depression......Page 162
12 Getting Help for Depression......Page 166
13 Making the Diagnosis Is the First Treatment......Page 173
14 Medical Treatment......Page 182
15 The Different Kinds of Drugs......Page 191
16 Psychotherapy: Treating the Person......Page 205
17 ECT, Light, and Other Medical Treatments......Page 218
18 Alternative Treatments......Page 229
19 Hospitalization: A Guide for Patients and Families......Page 238
20 Getting Back to Normal......Page 245
21 Going Forward......Page 260
Appendix A: Insurance......Page 271
Appendix B: Helpful Organizations......Page 275
Appendix C: Helpful Books......Page 282
Glossary......Page 286
Bibliography......Page 293
Index......Page 298