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Understanding Depression

What We Know and What You Can Do About It

By J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr.

One of the world's leading experts on depression, J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., M.D., chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, gives the general reader the latest and best information about an illness that one in five Americans will experience at some time in life.

What depression is, who gets it and why, what happens in the brain, the troubles that come with the illness, and the treatments that work (or do not) are the subjects in Understanding Depression. The author includes manic-depression (bipolar disorder), pointing out how often the two are related. Drawing on his experience with more than 8,000 affected people during 25 years of treating and counseling patients and speaking in public, Dr. DePaulo says that anyone who confronts depression fights it as an individual, and every case is different and deserves to be worked out it its own right. With this book, readers can make a powerful start.

Dr. DePaulo's work will be treasured for its wisdom, encouraging attitude, comforting compassion, and solid advice.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Forward
Introduction

Part One: Understanding Depression

1. The Experience of Depression
2. The Experience of Mania
3. Who Is at Risk for Depression?
    And Is It Getting More Common?
4. Recognizing Depression in All Its Forms and Guises
5. Stressful Events: When People Get Depressed

Part Two: Unraveling the Secrets

6. What Do We Know About the Brain?
7. Genes and Depression: The Fateful Inheritance
8. Hormones, Headaches, and Heart Attacks

Part Three: Depression and Mania and Destructive Effects on the Whole Person

9. Depression, Manic Depression, and Relationships
10. Destructive Behavior
11. Facing up to Suicide

Part Four: Treatments for Depression

12. Getting Help
13. Making the Diagnosis is the First Treatment
14. Medical Treatment
15. The Different Kinds of Drugs
16. Psychotherapy: Treating the Person
17. ECT, Light, and Other Medical Treatments
18. Alternative Treatments
19. Hospitalization: A Guide for Patients and Families
20. Getting Back to Normal
21. Going Forward
Appendix A: Insurance
Appendix B: Helpful Organizations
Appendix C: Helpful Books
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Endorsements

"Understanding Depression is an excellent bridge between medical science and the sufferer."

-Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, author of Exuberance: The Passion for Life and An Unquiet Mind

"...thoughtful, exhaustive reference on depression...readers will find this an invaluable resource."

-Publishers Weekly