The Truth about Depression: Choices for Healing

There are many celebrities including Christian celebrities that encourage Christians to think they should look for signs of "depression" in their friends and family members, even those they don't know well and who are also Christians. This is not the truth about depression and how Christians should treat one another. I agree with what the author says in this book that doesn't give the shallow "label and medicate" of much of today's psychiatry and "psychology" which is way too much into the biological treatment that does much harm to many. I know this from personal experience. I am thankful for books like this that do encourage mental health, but not with forced psychiatric drugs. I am a Christian psychiatric survivor and very happy and thankful.

A million thanks to Dr. Whitfield for helping me. An answer to my prayers - after numerous failed attempts with conventional psychiatry and their antidepressant drugs that didn't help me and often made me feel worse.

I've read more than dozen books this year on depression and related subjects, and this one is a real eye-opener. Dr. Whitfield pulls together hundreds of research studies examining depression and he finds the same patterns he saw in his own practice, namely that childhood trauma is a huge factor. The book goes on to provide extensive medical evidence explaining the specific ways in which trauma can lead to subsequent emotional disorder. Everything in this book matches exactly with my own experience. I had been struggling for years to understand why I became depressed, and Dr. Whitfield's books have given me that understanding. It's very therapeutic to learn what happened to you and that it's not your fault. I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject, and I'd also recommend Whitfield's "Healing the Child Within." Incidentally, this book can be invaluable whether or not you agree with the author's position on medication, which is not the main point of the book.

I wish I had read this book years ago. It would have saved me thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of go-no-where-therapy, and it would have given me a more real name for my so-called disease. I was diagnosed with major depression almost a decade ago. Doctors prescribed a string of antidepressants with no luck. The side effects were painful and my depression continued. There was a time, while taking Paxil, that I was suicidal most every day. I tried Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Trazadone, and Wellbutrin, and none worked. The theory was that I had to keep trying until I hit the right pill. I felt victimized and misunderstood by my otherwise well-intentioned doctors. From reading The Truth about Depression I learned that I had to grieve the pain of my losses instead of medicating them and share that pain with safe people. It has taken a lot of work and courage to face my pain. It was not an instant fix, but it has worked. I have instead, grieved, gone through my sadness and eventually found some peace. If I had medicated my grieving, I would have masked the pain with chemicals. This book offers a revolutionary approach to chronic sadness that sheds light on an obscure disease and gives hope. I am not on antidepressants, do not have their bothersome side effects, and I am getting better. The negative words below by GLBT ("Strongly biased") reflect how the drug industry and psychiatry have manipulated the public into believing their unproven claims about depression and other mental disorders. For more accuracy, check the other reviews below and the strong endorsements in the book.

In The Truth about Depression, Charles Whitfield makes a clear and compelling case for childhood trauma's undeniable link to childhood and adult depression and outlines a no nonsense, non-drug treatment strategy that works. For clinicians wishing to gain added understanding of depression's root cause and for depressed people, including their family members, wishing to speed their recovery . . . this book is a must read.This is the most "readable" volume on unresolved childhood trauma's link to depression in print today.Robert J. Woodson, Ph.D. Santa Barbara, California