As Richard O’Connor states, you won’t find many people with his experience, both personal and professional. He witnessed his mother’s depression, who ended her life when he was still a child. Understandably, he went on to suffer from depression as well. He chose a mental health profession, allowing him to treat and see many other depressives. In short, he really knows what he is talking about, and it shows in this brilliant and compassionate book.
Undoing depression will help you in many ways:
- Understanding what depression is, and what its countless consequences are:
What I particularly like is the comprehensiveness of depression’s consequences, its impact on your body, your relationship, your thinking, your emotions, your addictions, your work, your parental skills .
As O’Connor states, most depressives do not understand they are suffering from this disease. They typically come for therapy because of a crisis in their relationships, an addiction being out of control, or an issue at work. It’s only when they are assessed by a mental health professional that they understand that they are truly depressed. Reading this book and recognizing yourself all over the descriptions can allow you to do the very same thing.
- Allowing you to overcome guilt or shame for being depressed
Most depressed people tend to believe they are somehow to blame for how they feel, that they should snap out of it with willpower, or that it is an imaginary disease.
Thanks to Undoing Depression, you will understand that depression has real physical characteristics. Depressed people experience higher levels of stress hormones than non-depressed people. Some parts of their brains shrink during a depressive episode (up to 20% decrease in the size of the hippocampus). They loose the ability to produce essential feel good hormones as well.
In short, even if the root cause of depression is your past, the consequences of this disease are real, measurable, and very much in the present. You are not making up an illness, and you are absolutely not to blame either.
On top of being very real, depression is also very common: according to the author, 20% of the population is suffering from depression at any moment in time. You may find these figures exaggerated, but if you consider that 10% of Americans are currently taking meds against depression, well, 20% seems utterly plausible.
- Giving you tips and methods to overcome depression
Obviously, the importance of therapy and medication is outlined, even if O’Connor gives a mixed account on medication. He seems to think meds can be useful for massive depression but are prescribed far too often, with sometimes a “shut up and go away” attitudes from doctors.
He also gives methods and tools to enhance the effects of therapy and / or medication, and take charge of your recovery. Unlike a lot of mental health professionals, he thinks there a a lot of things we can do to reprogram our mind: mindfulness, exercise, understanding and tracking our emotions, detachment…In fact it is even the subtitle of his book – What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You: information, understanding, tools and advice.
- What is missing: the link between our depression and our past
If there is one aspect of depression that is lacking, it is the root cause of it: your past. O’Connor touches on it very briefly, only to make it clear that it is always the root cause of your depression. But unfortunately he does not expand on the topic.
I personally think that somewhere in our recovery we have to understand and reframe our past in order to get permanently well. It was my own experience, at least. O’Connor does not make it clear: either it is not true for him, or it is, but he thinks the priority is addressing the now.
All in all, I see this book as extremely useful, and I advise you to buy it if you have the slightest suspicion you are suffering from depression. In fact I’m not advising you, I’m begging you to buy it if you want to take charge of your emotional health !