A Confession


Book Description

A Confession Leo Tolstoy - This short work was originally titled An Introduction to a Criticism of Dogmatic Theology. It is a brief autobiographical story of the author's struggle with a mid-life existential crisis, and describes his search for the answer to the ultimate philosophical question: If God does not exist, since death is inevitable, what is the meaning of life?




Making Friends With Depression


Book Description

'Simple, lucid advice' Matt Haig, Sunday Times bestselling author of Reasons to be Alive, on Making Friends with Anxiety If you're suffering from depression or very low mood, you can end up feeling alone, desperately struggling to find a way through - but recovery is possible and, in Making Friends with Depression, bestselling authors Sarah Rayner and Kate Harrison, together with GP Dr Patrick Fitzgerald show you how. They explain that hating or fighting depression can actually prolong your suffering, whereas 'making friends' with difficult emotions by compassionately accepting these feelings can restore health and happiness. Sarah (Making Friends with Anxiety) and Kate (The 5:2 Diet Book) write with candour, compassion and humour about lifting low mood and easing symptoms because they've both experienced - and recovered from - depression themselves, while GP Dr Patrick Fitzgerald draws on his clinical understanding to offer practical advice on treatment options and finding support. The book explores: * The different types of depressive illness * Where to seek help and how to get a diagnosis * The pros and cons of the most commonly-prescribed medications * The different kinds of therapy available * Why depression can cause so many physical symptoms * What to do if you suffer suicidal thoughts * How to stop the spiral of negative thinking and boost self-esteem * Evidence-based steps to improve mental health and avoid relapse Fully illustrated and reflecting the latest National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines, Making Friends with Depression is succinct and surprisingly uplifting.The result is book that doesn't shy away from the distress that depression can cause, but is packed with simple tips that are easy to implement thereby offering hope and guidance through the darkest of times. PRAISE FOR MAKING FRIENDS WITH ANXIETY 'Reads like chatting with an old friend; one with wit, wisdom and experience' Brighton and Hove Independent PRAISE FORTHE 5:2 DIET BOOK 'The go-to 5:2 bible... Inspiring, motivational, simple' Women's Fitness PRAISE FOR SARAH RAYNER: 'Explores an emotive subject with great sensitivity' Sunday Express 'Brilliant... Warm and approachable' Essentials 'Carefully crafted and empathetic' The Sunday Times 'A sympathetic insight into the causes and effects of mental ill-health as it affects ordinary people. Powerful' My Weekly PRAISE FOR KATE HARRISON: 'Warm and witty' The Evening Telegraph 'Poignant and funny' She 'A very readable page-turner ... interesting and thought-provoking Book Trust




You Were Not Born to Suffer


Book Description

This bestselling self help guide offers a blueprint for identifying and healing the root causes of anxiety, depression, and disease. Learn how to free yourself from destructive thoughts and habits—so you can take charge of your health, happiness, and inner peace. In this life-changing book, Blake Bauer explains why depression, addiction, physical illness, unfulfilling work, and relationship problems are caused by years of hiding your true emotions, denying your life purpose, and living in fear. Having already helped thousands of people find lasting solutions that conventional medicine, psychiatry, or religion couldn't offer, You Were Not Born to Suffer shows you how to free yourself from these destructive thoughts, habits, and situations that keep you from being happy and well. In simple practical steps you’ll learn how to slow down and create a healthier relationship to yourself that is based on acceptance, kindness, honesty, and self-worth. You'll also find out how to transform the stress, anxiety, and insecurity that result from constantly trying to please others into lasting confidence, self-respect, and inner peace. Whether it’s negative thinking, financial worry, loneliness, guilt, or self-doubt that's holding you back, Blake Bauer's words will move you to take better care of yourself, heal old pain, and courageously move forward. If you're ready to enjoy your life, feel passionate about your work, and create fulfilling relationships, this book will support you to live authentically, love wholeheartedly, and finally value yourself enough to put everyday health and happiness at the center of your life.




It's Not Always Depression


Book Description

Fascinating patient stories and dynamic exercises help you connect to healing emotions, ease anxiety and depression, and discover your authentic self. Sara suffered a debilitating fear of asserting herself. Spencer experienced crippling social anxiety. Bonnie was shut down, disconnected from her feelings. These patients all came to psychotherapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel seeking treatment for depression, but in fact none of them were chemically depressed. Rather, Jacobs Hendel found that they’d all experienced traumas in their youth that caused them to put up emotional defenses that masqueraded as symptoms of depression. Jacobs Hendel led these patients and others toward lives newly capable of joy and fulfillment through an empathic and effective therapeutic approach that draws on the latest science about the healing power of our emotions. Whereas conventional therapy encourages patients to talk through past events that may trigger anxiety and depression, accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP), the method practiced by Jacobs Hendel and pioneered by Diana Fosha, PhD, teaches us to identify the defenses and inhibitory emotions (shame, guilt, and anxiety) that block core emotions (anger, sadness, fear, disgust, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement). Fully experiencing core emotions allows us to enter an openhearted state where we are calm, curious, connected, compassionate, confident, courageous, and clear. In It’s Not Always Depression, Jacobs Hendel shares a unique and pragmatic tool called the Change Triangle—a guide to carry you from a place of disconnection back to your true self. In these pages, she teaches lay readers and helping professionals alike • why all emotions—even the most painful—have value. • how to identify emotions and the defenses we put up against them. • how to get to the root of anxiety—the most common mental illness of our time. • how to have compassion for the child you were and the adult you are. Jacobs Hendel provides navigational tools, body and thought exercises, candid personal anecdotes, and profound insights gleaned from her patients’ remarkable breakthroughs. She shows us how to work the Change Triangle in our everyday lives and chart a deeply personal, powerful, and hopeful course to psychological well-being and emotional engagement.




The Mindful Way through Depression


Book Description

If you’ve ever struggled with depression, take heart. Mindfulness, a simple yet powerful way of paying attention to your most difficult emotions and life experiences, can help you break the cycle of chronic unhappiness once and for all. In The Mindful Way through Depression, four uniquely qualified experts explain why our usual attempts to “think” our way out of a bad mood or just “snap out of it” lead us deeper into the downward spiral. Through insightful lessons drawn from both Eastern meditative traditions and cognitive therapy, they demonstrate how to sidestep the mental habits that lead to despair, including rumination and self-blame, so you can face life’s challenges with greater resilience. This e-book includes an audio program of guided meditations, narrated by Jon Kabat-Zinn, for purchasers to stream or download from the web. See also the authors' Mindful Way Workbook, which provides step-by-step guidance for building your mindfulness practice in 8 weeks. Plus, mental health professionals, see also the authors' bestselling therapy guide: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, Second Edition. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Self-Help Book of Merit




I Had a Black Dog


Book Description

'I Had a Black Dog says with wit, insight, economy and complete understanding what other books take 300 pages to say. Brilliant and indispensable.' - Stephen Fry 'Finally, a book about depression that isn't a prescriptive self-help manual. Johnston's deftly expresses how lonely and isolating depression can be for sufferers. Poignant and humorous in equal measure.' Sunday Times There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. Matthew Johnstone, a sufferer himself, has written and illustrated this moving and uplifting insight into what it is like to have a Black Dog as a companion and how he learned to tame it and bring it to heel.




I Don't Want to Talk About It


Book Description

A bestseller for over 20 years, I Don’t Want to Talk About It is a groundbreaking and hopeful guide to understanding and destigmatizing male depression, essential not only for men who may be suffering but for the people who love them. Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men—that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male—difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage—are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children. This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his own experiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.




Not Alone


Book Description

The author speaks from the heart as minister, woman, friend, professional, and person who lives with depression. This 40-day devotional offers a tool that guides the reader back to faith through personal exploration and experiences of strength, hope, love and spirit.




Stress in Post-War Britain, 1945–85


Book Description

In the years following World War II the health and well-being of the nation was of primary concern to the British government. The essays in this collection examine the relationship between health and stress in post-war Britain through a series of carefully connected case studies.




A First-Rate Madness


Book Description

The New York Times bestseller “A glistening psychological history, faceted largely by the biographies of eight famous leaders . . .” —The Boston Globe “A provocative thesis . . . Ghaemi’s book deserves high marks for original thinking.” —The Washington Post “Provocative, fascinating.” —Salon.com Historians have long puzzled over the apparent mental instability of great and terrible leaders alike: Napoleon, Lincoln, Churchill, Hitler, and others. In A First-Rate Madness, Nassir Ghaemi, director of the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center, offers a myth-shattering exploration of the powerful connections between mental illness and leadership and sets forth a controversial, compelling thesis: The very qualities that mark those with mood disorders also make for the best leaders in times of crisis. From the importance of Lincoln's "depressive realism" to the lackluster leadership of exceedingly sane men as Neville Chamberlain, A First-Rate Madness overturns many of our most cherished perceptions about greatness and the mind.