opening our awareness (Overcoming Depression - Paul Gilbert)

Member Name: licclevicki

Product:	Overcoming Depression - Paul Gilbert
Date:	26/01/09 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Insightful and helpful

Disadvantages: Not a cure

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Over coming Depression - Paul Gilbert
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For as long as l can remember l have suffered with depression and anxiety.
Anyway l was going through a rough time recently and my mum and sister brought me this book, they also brought themselves a copy. This is a book that doesn't need to be read by people with depression, it is a bit of a self help guide for anyone with an interest in psychology or who just wants to live their life to its full potential.

There are few people that avoid the grips of depression and anxiety at some point throughout their lives and this book takes a new approach to depression.
For so many years depression has been treated with tablets, but now more and more doctors are realising that other approaches can sometimes (not always) work just as well, such as CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy).



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About the Book
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This book is written by a doctor with a personal and professional interest in depression. It uses a CBT approach. To anyone not familiar with CBT, CBT uses thinking and thought processes, to change the way we approach things, to change the unhelpful thought processes we have learnt and to develop new thinking patterns.

The book helps you to understand what depression is, why we are affected and helps explain the different ways that our thinking styles can make us ill. You will read this book and no doubt you will think 'l do that' or 'l do this' without previously realising that you did that. There are many chapters in this book each with activities at the end, when you do the activities it will help make sense of each chapter and help you to understand how you can change the habit.

The book is presented in quite a bright cover, the format and layout is easy to read and you are encouraged to read the book in which ever way you find best, whether this is to read bits that apply to you, or whether you choose to read the book from beginning to end. I chose to read the book thoroughly as l didn't want to miss any vital bits of information.
I like the style of writing the author displays, its light and easy to read, all the information is there but in an easy to understand way. I have found other similar books, hard to follow and sometimes rather technical.

The book is divided into three parts, all together there are 19 chapters.

Part one is about understanding depression. This covers things like the biology, stress, evolution and covers some of the many causes of depression.

Part Two moves on to How to cope with depression. This part of the book is dedicated to looking at negative thinking, challenging these thoughts, understanding self bullying and understanding how negative labels and thoughts can and do affect us.

Part three is then about special problems associated with depression, and this covers understanding our approaches towards, bullying, feelings of shame, guilt, anger, perfectionism and competitiveness.

The book supplys thinking forms at the back of the book that you can photocopy to help you with challenging your thoughts.



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MY thoughts
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My mum herself read this book and felt it didn't really give any new information. However l feel that this is a very successful book, that perhaps doesn't tell you new things, but opens your awareness. I read the reviews on Amazon and this book got some extremely good reviews. I too would give this book very good marks. it's a book l think l shall refer back to in the future and a book l have found helpful.

What l found most useful is understanding how our internal bully constantly put us down, and that rather than success being about the ability to suceed it is also about the ability to fail, to be able to cope and accept yourself when things don't go quite as well as planned.

This book is certainly an eye opener, it helps you to put things into perspective and to realise those thinking errors we are making.

The author understands this may not cure everyone of depression and may not even help everyone, but he notes that trying such techniques can do no harm. Paul Gilbert has many useful suggestions in this book. Some may not be things you would be comfortable with trying, but lm sure you would find some helpful hints in this book if you gave it a read.

This book is not only an interesting experience to help yourself, but to help understand how people around us are feeling, and to gain insight into mental health issues. It is also a useful a useful book for those working with those with depression and anxiety.

My sister a psychiatric nurse found this book very insightful, and very well explained. So it's a book that can be read by anyone.
It is not an answer to severe depression, when a patient needs medication, but l think what the author is trying to suggest is even if trying some of exercises help a little, it is worth it.


I found this quite an inspiring and enjoyable read. I have no real criticism, and l would encourage people to read.

Price aprox £9
ISBN 13: 9781841191256

Summary: a really easy to read and helpful book