When Feeling Bad is Good

Where other self-help books tend to perpetuate readers' bad feelings by pointing to something that is "wrong" with them, Ellen McGrath does something infinitely more helpful: She provides clear, rational, *cultural* explanations for women's depression and offers action-oriented approaches to dealing not only with the depression itself but also with the factors contributing to it.McGrath explains that cultural pressures and attitudes cause women to become depressed about their relationships, bodies, and age - making us feel victimized, depleted, and angry. The depression caused by these forces, McGrath tells us, is natural, normal: "To not feel angry or victimized by some of our typical female experiences would be to live in a fantasy world of denial" (p. 7). Yet, she reminds us, we are living in a time when we have more opportunities, more power available to us than women from any other time: "We can reclaim and transform the negative energy we had devoted to suppressing and denying these bad feelings and use it instead to set our lives moving in a healthy new direction. Once we accept that there are times when feeling bad is good, we've taken an important step toward living more fulfilling lives..." (p. 8). She then goes on to show her readers how this can be accomplished through taking action, self-exploration, and learning to recognize the forces at work around and inside us. This book is currently out of print. As a woman who has found it incredibly helful and healing, though, I think it should be brought out of retirement. McGrath refuses to see us as passive, helpless victims, and I think it's high time we refuse to see ourselves that way, too! This book can help.