Hand-Me-Down Blues: How To Stop Depression From Spreading In Families

I read this book a few years ago, and lent it to someone. Now I bought it for my sister who's going through a rough time. If you want to manage and grow from your life, this may be helpful.

What impressed me the most about this book was Dr. Yapko's consideration of how depression is much more than something that hurts only individuals. It hurts families, too. My husband had been depressed for a long time, and refused to get any help, thinking it would "just go away." It didn't. I didn't know how to cope with him, and neither did our kids. We just got frustrated and angry, which didn't help. The book helped me get a much better understanding of what my husband has been going through and how I can cope with his way of doing things. But even better than that, I have a positive way of talking with the kids and our friends and relatives about his issues and how they affect us. My husband is doing better lately, and I think that's due to some of the suggestions in the book that have helped us be smarter in the way we deal with him. As Dr. Yapko points out, when we change some of what we do, others will change, too. This book has really helped our family alot, for which I am grateful to Dr. Yapko.

As they say, you can't judge a book by its cover but when I saw the title, I had to read it. As I was checking it out of my local library, the woman in line behind me saw the cover and was disappointed that I was taking it out instead of returning it. This all speaks volumes about the need for someone to explain how some families get so dysfunctional in the first place and more importantly how to counteract their negative influence and hopefully recover from it. I've known for years that the root of my depression was in the family dsyfunction I grew up with but I couldn't quite explain how. We didn't become dysfunctional by the classic things like alcoholism or drug abuse but by something more insidious. Reading this book helped me at least start to unravel the tangled mess of my depressive family relationships. It's not a cure-all but it's a great start!

Dr. Michael Yapko, a leading expert on depression, has written a book on depression that offers sound advice for people who are depressed and their families. If you, or a loved one, is depressed, this book is must reading. Yapko surveys the myths of depression and offers solutions on how families can help one another. This book should be must reading for any family that is experiencing depression

The many endorsements from his colleagues enticed me to buy Dr. Yapko's book. It lived up to and even surpassed the high expectations! It was easy to read and totally engrossed me as I finally came to understand how my family created the environment in which I learned what Dr. Yapko would probably call "faulty patterns" of thinking and relating. I've been depressed, and I've been treated with antidepressants, and I now understand much more about why the drugs never improved my ability to handle my family better. I learned a lot from the many stories he provides that illustrate his key points, and I often felt he was talking directly to me. There's no doubt he knows what depression is about, and he inspires the confidence to learn to do things differently. I give this book my highest recommendation!