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oyceter(subtitle: How to Help Your Loved One Without Losing Yourself)
I liked this one better than How You Can Survive When They're Depressed, probably because I felt it had a slightly more balanced view of people who are depressed. Either that, or else it just made me feel less guilty or something. It doesn't look quite as closely at the effects that depression has on other people, like the other book did, but it does seem to be a much more practical guide for people who just want to figure out how to deal with someone who is depressed.
The book gives guidelines for how to tell if someone is depressed, and tips on how to help out. Most of the tips are pretty much the same, even though the book is split into sections for lovers, parents, children and friends. I suspect the authors did this so people could just flip to the applicable chapter instead of read straight through like I did, because the book does get fairly repetitive that way. It also goes into dealing with suicide or suicidal behavior, constructive behavior, therapy and meds. Although I found a lot of the examples too pat -- problems got resolved so easily in the book -- the guidelines in general do seem to be good ones. However, I do wish that the authors said something more about the limits of what you can do. I think it's tough for a lot of friends and close ones to realize that in the end, if the depressed person doesn't want to go for help, you can't force them. Gentle nudging and convincing, yes, but anything that hints of forceful behavior (for me) at least, didn't work at all.
And it would have been nice to have something about the importance of finding other depressed people to talk to, if you want to help out someone who is depressed. At least personally, one of the biggest things that helped was just finding that there were other people who felt the way I did, and people who had pretty much the same thought patterns. Thoughts that seem perfectly normal suddenly look suicidal or depressive on other people.
Anyway, an interesting read, though rather repetitive.
I liked this one better than How You Can Survive When They're Depressed, probably because I felt it had a slightly more balanced view of people who are depressed. Either that, or else it just made me feel less guilty or something. It doesn't look quite as closely at the effects that depression has on other people, like the other book did, but it does seem to be a much more practical guide for people who just want to figure out how to deal with someone who is depressed.
The book gives guidelines for how to tell if someone is depressed, and tips on how to help out. Most of the tips are pretty much the same, even though the book is split into sections for lovers, parents, children and friends. I suspect the authors did this so people could just flip to the applicable chapter instead of read straight through like I did, because the book does get fairly repetitive that way. It also goes into dealing with suicide or suicidal behavior, constructive behavior, therapy and meds. Although I found a lot of the examples too pat -- problems got resolved so easily in the book -- the guidelines in general do seem to be good ones. However, I do wish that the authors said something more about the limits of what you can do. I think it's tough for a lot of friends and close ones to realize that in the end, if the depressed person doesn't want to go for help, you can't force them. Gentle nudging and convincing, yes, but anything that hints of forceful behavior (for me) at least, didn't work at all.
And it would have been nice to have something about the importance of finding other depressed people to talk to, if you want to help out someone who is depressed. At least personally, one of the biggest things that helped was just finding that there were other people who felt the way I did, and people who had pretty much the same thought patterns. Thoughts that seem perfectly normal suddenly look suicidal or depressive on other people.
Anyway, an interesting read, though rather repetitive.