Listening to Depression: How Understanding Your Pain Can Heal Your Life

by Lara Honos-Webb

Book Overview

A New Way of Thinking About Depression What does it really mean to be depressed? You know depression as a collection of symptoms--fatigue, listlessness, feelings of worthlessness--and the source of more than a little pain. But depression is also a signal that something in your life is wrong and needs to be healed. Too often, though, we try to cut off or numb our feelings of depression instead of listening carefully to what they are telling us about...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1572244437
• ISBN13: 9781572244436
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Breaking free of your depression and despair to be the best you can be!

If you are a self-help aficionado like me who has read hundreds of books, but the result has only been an increase in knowledge about a particular problem, but never finding a clear map through the quagmire of self analysis, this is the book for you! This book is tailored to find what works for you and is free of the "one size fits all" type of advice found in many self-help books. The exercises provided in the book pushed me to go beyond treating my symptoms and expand how I viewed the purpose of my life. The exercises were great at pushing me beyond the typical focus on weaknesses and helped me find my unique strengths and make begin to put them into use.

"Listening to depression"-a balm for the soul.

Poetically written and gentle, this book offers an insight into a different way of looking at a "diagnosis." Holistic and pragmatic at the same time, offering inspiration to those who need it the most.

If you are depressed, here is the way to turn the experience around!

Around in 2 ways: Depression can be an opportunity to look at your past and present life for clues as to your "slowing or shutting down." Once you find what's out of balance in your life, you can slowly turn your life around, and start anew. Not easy to do, but this book can help. Easy to understand exercises and personal reviews. I highly recommend this book!

Moving Beyond Symptoms - Listening and Finding Meaning in Depression

This well-written, thoughtful book tackles the issue of how to reorient your thoughts and behaviors to make bouts of depression opportunities for self-growth and discovery. Typically cast as a condition best avoided, Lara Honos-Webb presents a compelling argument that depression is a message from us, to us, and about us; however, you must be open to listening to that message (not always easy to do). As a mental health professional, I particularly appreciate how she argues that re-casting depression as an asset requires both active engagement (e.g., journal writing) on the part of the individual with reverence for the pain people often exhibit during dark moments of depression. If you enjoyed Dr. Honos-Webb's first book, The Gift of ADHD, you will take comfort in her ability to pull away the veil of depression and inject optimism where only pessimism previously resided. This book is appropriate for all adult audiences, though it is probably most useful for those "protecting against" or trying to learn more about themselves before the onset of a depressive episode; that is, before the most troubling aspects of depression have set-in. If you have interest in learning more about what your depression is trying to communicate to you, I highly recommend this book.