Talking to Depression: Simple Ways To Connect When Someone In Your LifeIs Depressed: Simple Ways To Connect When Someone In Your Life Is Depressed [Paperback]

 

 

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I highly recommend this compassionate handbook which gives simple, practical suggestions about how to help a person who is struggling with depression. TALKING TO DEPRESSION is not for therapists but rather for the rest of us--family members and friends who are in the trenches with a depressed person "in all the moments of every day." The book begins with a brief overview of depression written in plain language and goes on to provide a glimpse of what depression feels like from the inside as described by people who have actually experienced it. What I found most helpful was the author's specific advice about what to say and what not to say, about what to do and what not to do when trying to give comfort and support to someone suffering with depression. And the book closes with an excellent list of resources for further study and assistance. With TALKING TO DEPRESSION, Claudia Strauss has given us a gift--she reminds us that everyday people in everyday situations can make a difference, and she teaches us how.

As someone who has suffered from depression for years, I found the book to be fairly accurate. It doesn't provide a lot of detail, but it gives enough information that non-sufferers can gain a little better understanding of the illness and how to deal with those suffering from it. At 200 pages it's a very easy read (I read it in two sittings). Not a bad book to get a quick overview on depression and some ideas on how you can help (and what *not* to do) when someone you care about is suffering.

First and foremost, Talking to Depression by Claudia Strauss is a map. It's a map for travelers in a tricky and sometimes dangerous land. If you have a family member, friend, or co-worker who suffers from depression, then this guidebook will serve as your navigator through troubled waters. While it offers an overview of depression in general, and a list of resources to contact at its close, its greatest strength lies in the concrete, down-to-earth tips it has to offer to individuals who are trying to help a depressed person. From conversation starters to non-verbal shows of support to "gifting," no avenue is left unexplored for the person desperately trying to cope with a depressed person on an every day basis.
Philosophically the author believes in a community approach to depression, not just in terms of teamwork on the part of the professionals who may be treating the depressed person, but also in terms of family and friends who have daily contact with the afflicted individual. Additionally, if depressed persons are made to feel part of that community of helpers, then they may be more likely to reach out to others and thus contribute to their own recovery.
Certainly, Talking to Depression can be read from cover to cover, but it's organized and indexed in such a way as to facilitate easy access to certain sections of interest to the reader. For example, there's a "Do Say/Don't Say" Cheat Sheet, a chapter on suicide, and a section on childhood depression, just to name a few. Ms. Strauss has gathered together quotations from a variety of sources, which she skillfully uses as epigraphs for each chapter. These quotations not only enlighten the reader, but also bring in the wealth of human experience to bear on the subject at hand. My favorite one that she employs is from Aristotle - "A friend is a second self." It says to me that if, as a depressed person, you can see a friend as a kind of mirror, then it's possible to see in your well friend a "possible you." In other words, there is hope.
The most poignant and moving section of this book, however, comes in Chapter Three which is entitled, "Seeing Through Their Eyes: What Depression Feels Like." Included in this chapter are quotes from actual sufferers who describe with fresh language and concrete metaphors the nightmare that is depression, thus allowing the reader a privileged glimpse into their world.
As someone who has suffered from depression herself, I found the book accessible and lovingly wrought. While some coping strategies and philosophical outlooks that I found helpful are not included in the book, this only highlights the point that each person's experience of depression, while universal in some features, is ultimately unique. Mary Arguelles

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