Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain
The subtitle of this book is misleading: suicide, not depression, is the main topic here. Conroy, executive director of Suicide Prevention Resources in New York City, believes that the most effective way to treat and prevent suicide is to "decompose" it into simple matrix elements: shame, envy, self-pity, grandiosity, fear, stigma, and prejudice. By recovering from each of these maladies, he asserts, the would-be suicide can rejoin the world of the mentally healthy. If this sounds a bit onedimensional, it is. Though research increasingly points to a biochemical, genetically inherited culprit in severe depression and study after study indicates that pharmacological intervention plus therapy is the most effective form of treatment, Conroy insists dubiously - that recovery can be both simple and drug-free. The book's main flaw is that it never targets its audience. It promises to be useful to counselors, grieving survivors, and those in the early stages of recovery, but this is too broad an ambition. The writing is singularly dense and academic: it's doubtful that anyone in emotional turmoil will have the patience or objectivity necessary to wade through - much less make use of - the material on recovery. --FromIndependent Publisher--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.