Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/faqs/alt/answers/alt-support-depression/My-Book-List/part2

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From: [e-mail] (Stewart N. Abramson)
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Subject: My Book List (alt.support.depression) - part 2 of 3
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Summary: This list collects information on books that *I* consider
        to have been of some value to me as I recover from my own
        personal life-crisis/depression.
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_________________________________
BOOKS I HAVE READ ALL THE WAY THROUGH              -    continued
_________________________________


Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
Title: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995
ISBN: 0-679-44374-6
Comments: Jamison, is a respected researcher in the field of manic
depression, and suffers from the same illness.  I liked the book a lot.  I
could particularly relate to it because I am an Assistant Professor doing
research in a medical school.  Although I am not bipolar, pain is pain, and
her's comes through loud and clear.  I was really only bothered by one
thing.  She, and particularly the press, seem to make a reasonably big deal
about of her coming out of the closet by revealing her personal life.  This
makes it sound as though others have less to lose by doing the same.  As if
perhaps, a truck driver living in a trailer park, or a secretary working
for peanuts, has less to lose by writing such a personal story.  In
addition, while her insights from her professional life add some interest
and depth, IMHO the value of it lies in the personal nature of the story.
I think I would have liked it better if she was just another one of "us",
rather than being one of "them" and also one of "us".  Still, I do not
begrudge her this.  It is, after all, part of her story.  Her need to show
both herself and others that she can do it (ie. be a successful
professional).  She may have me beat in that regard, and perhaps I am
jealous of that.

Author: Sheldon B. Kopp
Title: An end to innocence: facing life without illusions
Publisher: Macmillan, 1978:  Bantam Books, 1983
ISBN: 0025664700:  0-553-23826-4
Comments: I liked this book.  All about how difficult it is to face the
fact (the author and I both believe it is a fact) that our external and
internal worlds are full of random events.  It's about how the attitude of
"I will ultimately be rewarded for my goodness" is just as unlikely to be
valid as the attitude of "the whole world is out to get me".  In the
authors and my opinion, both views endow the world with more order than is
there, and both views endow ourselves with more significance to the world
than is possible.  It is the getting lost in these "pseudo-innocent"
beliefs that we need, and that can also lead us astray.  I believe the
author writes the book to help himself through his own life, and also to
help others.  To the extent that his focus is on the latter, he sounds
preachy, and is likely to be bathing himself in just the sort of "hopeful
pretending and pseudo-innocence" that he is working hard to lose.

Author: Sheldon B. Kopp
Title: All God's children are lost but only a few can play the piano:
finding a life that is truly your own
Publisher: Prentice Hall Press, 1991
ISBN: 0-13-026881-X
Comments: A nice little book.  The title comes from a story about a blind
jazz piano player who has to listen to an evangelist insists that he is
"lost without God".  Finally the piano player responds;  "all God's
children are lost, but only a few can play the piano".  Now if I only knew
how to play the piano my life would be OK.  Hahahahaha, what is *my*
piano??

Author: Irvin D. Yalom
Title: Love's executioner and other tales of psychotherapy
Publisher: Basic Books, 1989
ISBN: 0465042805
Comments: The book is a compilation of 10 short stories of psychotherapy.
An example, is the title story.  An older woman comes to the
author/therapist with an 8 year unrequited love obsession.  The author
realizes that the process of therapy and the process of being in love are
mutually exclusive.  Therapy finds darkness and endeavors to illuminate.
Romantic love on the other hand is shrouded in mystery and crumbles upon
inspection.  He hates to be "love's executioner".  I found a bit of myself
in all of these stories, so I liked the book.

Author: Carl A. Whitaker and William M. Bumberry
Title: Dancing with the family : a symbolic-experiential approach
Publisher: Brunner/Mazel, 1988
Comments: An example of a family in the process of family therapy.  This is
a different family than the one described in "The Family Crucible".  The
book has a somewhat unusual presentation style.  In some parts actual
conversations are on the left, and therapists comments on the right.  In
other parts the therapy dialog is extended with someone asking Carl
Whitaker questions about what he said to the family.  There is also a lot
of Whitaker simply using this particular family to talk about his style of
family therapy.  I did not think that thus book was as good as "The Family
Crucible", but if you liked that book, then this one will probably be
interesting.  Although I really like Whitaker's basic approach, I think he
would be a little too cryptic and elusive for me in a real therapeutic
environment.

Author: Augustus Y. Napier, with Carl A. Whitaker
Title: The family crucible
Publisher: Harper & Row, 1978
Comments: An easy to read look at a family in the process of family
therapy.  Very good for me personally.  Helps to understand how family
members, as a system, can all unconciously conspire to maintain each other
in roles that none of them actually want to play.  For instance, why would
ALL of the members of a family actually encourage a child to become
depressed and to "act out", even while they ALL say they don't like the
situation??  If you don't know the answer to this question, you might want
to read this book.  Similar in some ways to The Dance of Intimacy.

Author: Harriet Goldhor Lerner, Ph.D.
Title: The Dance of Anger (1985), The Dance of Intimacy (1989), and The
Dance of Deception (1993)
Publisher: Harper and Row for Anger and Intimacy.  Harper Collins for Deception.
Comments: These three books are all very similar and all VERY good.  They
hit me right were I live.  They are a little bit heavy on the "feminist"
sociological perspective, but I was able to read through what I personally
did not need.  All three books deal with how we can only change ourselves,
and not others.  But, as we change ourselves, we will meet with resistance
from within and from without.  Most of us cannot live alone without any
contact with people, but it is hard to dance with someone if either party
(even yourself) keeps changing their steps.  How do we own our own selves,
dance with others, change our selves, and not lose our partners in the
process?  These are not "how to" books.

Author: Lauren Slater
Title: Welcome to My Country
Publisher: Random House, 1996
Comments: The author is a psychologist who was diagnosed and hospitalized
with borderline personality disorder.  From about 15 to 20 she was on the
"inside", but somehow managed to make her way to become an insightful
therapist.  The book has an almost lyrical cadence, as she deftly closes
the gap between "us" and "them".

Author: Mark Vonnegut
Title: The Eden Express
Publisher: Bantam 1975
Comments: This is a presumably somewhat autobiographical novel by Mark
Vonnegut, the son of writter Kurt Vonnegut.  It is the story of his
experience with "schizophrenia."  He certainly sucked me down into a spiral
of disoriented confusion.  Apparently he has since been diagnosed with
manic depression and recent versions of this book are said to include an
addendum about this.

Author: Tracy Thompson
Title: The Beast: A Reckoning with Depression
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14077-8
Comments: A Washington Post reporter writes of her personal struggle with
depression.  I liked it.  It is not in strict journal style, but it is sort
of a personal historical accounting, along the lines of Prozac Nation.  A
bit heavy on the boyfriend, but all in all a good read for me.

Author: Daniel Coleman
Title: Emotional Intelligence
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1995
Comments: I liked the premise of this book, but I found it somehow off the
mark in it's presentation.  While it promoted the importance of "emotional
intelligence", it seemed to present this concept in an intellectualized,
all but emotional, format that somehow sort of got in my way.  Still I did
like the premise of the book.

Author: Richard E. Cytowic
Title: The Man Who Tasted Shapes, A Bizarre Medical Mystery Offers
Revolutionary Insights into Emotions, Reasoning, and Conciousness
Publisher: Putnam, 1993
Comments: The title is a little too much, but I liked this book.  It is a
neurological study of people with an unusual form of sensation called
"synethesia", wherein a person senses an object in mixed modalities (eg.
tasting in shapes).  It is sort of in the spirit of neurological studies of
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat", but it is focused on only one
type of odd neuology.  I thought too much of the book was spent trying to
localize the "anatomical place" for the synethesia, but I liked the
concepts it brought up about emotions come first, and logic filters the
emotions.

Author: Peter D. Kramer, M.D.
Title: Listening To Prozac
Publisher: Viking, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-84183-8
Comments: A psychiatrist explores some of the implications of
antidepressants, and especially of Prozac's unusual effects on the
personality.  Kramer also discusses the recent research on depression, as
well as several other issues which seem linked to depression. (unknown)  As
a pharmacologist and a student of possibilities, I liked this exploration a
lot.

Author: Marth Manning
Title: Undercurrents: A Therapist's Reckoning with Her Own Depression
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994
ISBN: 006251184X (paperback, 1995)
Comments: Good book, written by a psychotherapist about her own bout with
depression. (Barbara Zak)  Written in journal style, she ultimately
underwent ECT and at the writing of it, felt it was worth it.  A good
personal story.  I talked with her at a National Depressive and Manic
Depressive Association meeting in 1997.  She was warm and witty and very
articulate.  I asked her if she still felt positively about ECT.  She said
that since the book was published she has has another series of ECT
treatments, and she still feels they have saved her life.

Author: Percy Knauth
Title: A Season in Hell
Publisher: Harper and Row, 1975
Comments: Hard to come by. (unknown)  A reasonably easy to read personal
story of depression.  The sort of thing I like to read

Author: William Styron
Title: Darkness Visible:  A Memoir of Madness
Publisher: Vintage, 1990
ISBN: 0-679-73639-5
Comments: Good, but not great, heavy writing style with not much info.
(Barbara Zak)  This is a wonderful book, tho it is perhaps a little too
well crafted.  In comparison with Prozac Nation, this book lacks a raw edge
to it.  Note that the author is famous for many other books, some about
suicide (eg. Sophie's Choice) but he did not recognize his own depression
until much later.

Author: Norman S. Elder
Title: Holiday of Darkness: A Psychologist's Personal Journey Out of His
Depression
Publisher: Wiley, 1982
Comments: This is a bit old, and hard to come by, but written by a
psychologist about his depression.  Interesting, but it seemed to me that
his depression was on the mild side. (Barbara Zak)  Yet another personal
story of depression.

Author: Kathy Cronkite
Title: On the Edge of Darkness:  Conversations about Conquering Depression.
Publisher: Doubleday, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42194-X
Comments: Written by Walter Cronkite's daughter. Features a variety of
personal stories by herself, other celebrities, and famous people about
their experiences with depression. (unknown)  I didn't think I would like
this book because I could really care less about "celebrities", but in the
end, as usual for me, I found common ground listening to the stories of
others.

Author: Elizabeth Wurtzel
Title: Prozac Nation:  Young and Depressed in America
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994
ISBN: 0-395-68093-x
Comments: A great book, easily readable.  I've felt the same experiences
and had the same questions and conclusions in my mind as the young author,
Wurtzel.  This is an important, and timely book, not just for
twentynothings.  If you find that people cannot understand your depression,
maybe you should hand them this book to read.  Ad notes: "An electrifying
memoir about a young woman's 5-year battle with depression. (unknown)  One
of the best "personal stories" I have read thus far.  Pain is pain.  I am
as far from a 20 something suicidal young girl as one can get, but this
book really "spoke to me".  Pain is pain.

Author: Judith Viorst
Title: Necessary Losses
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1986
Comments: Somewhat hard to read, somewhat heavy on the psychoanalytical
side, but it seemed to fit for me.  I may have to read this again at some
point, as I don't think it is the kind of book that you can integrate after
just one reading.

Author: Dr. Vamik Volkan and Elizabeth Zintl
Title: Life After Loss, The Lessons of Grief
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993
Comments: This was a book more about grief then depression, but that fit for me.

Author: Roberta Israeloff
Title: In Confidence, Four Years of Therapy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1990
Comments: A woman goes into therapy to become a better mother for her new
son.  She comes up with a whole lot more than she expected.  Reasonably
easy to read, and as a new father I could relate to most of it.

Author: Carol Ferland
Title: The Long Journey Home
Publisher: Alfred Knopf, 1980
Comments: The diary style journal of a woman and her therapy.  She deals a
lot with transference, and her fixation on her therapist.  But there is
more here than just that in it as well.

Author: Harry Middleton
Title: The Bright Country, A fisherman's Return to Trout, Wild Water, and
Himself
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1993
Comments: A man is forced out of his job, but looks for and finds himself
elsewhere.  Fun to read, but a little on the fictional rather than
autobiographical side.

Author: Annie G. Rogers, Ph.D.
Title: A Shining Affliction, A History of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy
Publisher: Vicking, 1995
Comments: I think I liked this, but I cannot remember what it was all about.

Author: Thomas Maeder
Title: Children of Psychiatrists and Other Psychotherapists
Publisher: Harper and Row, 1989
Comments: This book is probably only of interest to
psychiatrists/psychotherapists and their children.  It is heavily weighted
to what I think a typical New York City psychotherapist might be like.  I
only found one section of it that I thought fit with my father (a
psychiatrist) and my family.  Several years after my father's death I found
this book in his study.  Now what do you suppose THAT means?

Author: Susanna Kaysen
Title: Girl, Interrupted
Publisher: Turtle Bay Books, Random House, 1993
Comments: Very good personal story.  Short and easy to read.  About the
author's 2 year stay in a famous mental hospital as an 18 year old in the
60's.  It is punctuated by actual documents from her medical files.

Author: Sheldon B. Kopp
Title: If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1972
Comments: I liked this perspective on psychotherapy.  The therapist as a
fellow traveler, who must ultimately be left in the dust on the road, since
only you can really walk your own path, and know and live your own life.

Author: Barbara Lazear Ascher
Title: Landscape Without Gravity, A Memoir of Grief
Publisher: Penguin Books, 1993
Comments: A woman comes to terms with the grief she feels after the death
of her brother from AIDS.  There are probably a lot of similar books given
the number of young men and women who have died of AIDS.  I have not read
any others.  However, I did not find this too specific to AIDS, nor to
brothers.  I really like the title too.

Author: Natalie Goldberg
Title: Long Quiet Highway, Waking up in America
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1993
Comments: A good read for me, because I like Zen, and I lived in
Minneapolis and Denver.  Not much here to do with depression per say, but
rather just another personal story of getting from here to there.

Author: Stephanie Ericson
Title: Companion Through Darkness, Inner Dialogues on Grief
Publisher: Harper Collins, 1993
Comments: Her husband dies suddenly before she gives birth to their first
child.  Very short chapters, each in two parts.  One part sort of
theoretically related to grief, the other more personal.

Author: Roger Kamenetz
Title: The Jew in the Lotus
Publisher: Harper Collins, 1994
Comments: A small delegation of Jews bring a Torah to the Dali Lama who is
living in northern India, in exile from Tibet.  The Dali Lama is interested
to know how a people/culture/religion can survive in exile as the Jews have
for over 2000 years.  Since the Jews are no longer in forced exile, this
raises the question of how they will continue to survive now that they can
"come home".

Author: Viktor E. Frankl
Title: Man's Search for Meaning, An Introduction to Logotherapy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 1959
Comments: The first half of the book is autobiographical in nature, about
the author's experience as a young therapist trying to find meaning for
himself and others as they struggle to stay alive in Nazi concentration
camps.  The second half is thicker on theory.  Logotherapy is "meaning
based" therapy, and has a decided existential tone to it.

Author: Hermann Hess
Title: Siddhartha
Publisher: New Directions, 1961
Comments: The quintessential book about searching.  The story of a young
man and his friend as they attempt to find meaning in their lives.  I liked
it when I was in High School, and I liked it again at 40.

Author: Hermann Hess
Title: Journey to the East
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1961
Comments: Also a good book about searching.  Perhaps a tale about how even
the most unlikely of characters can be the fulcrum of one's life.  Another
book that I liked when I was in High School and liked again at 40.

Author: Erich Fromm
Title: The Art of Loving
Publisher: Perennial Library, 1956
Comments: Hard to read, but lots of good-for-me insights.

Author: Robin Maugham
Title: The Servant
Publisher: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1949
Comments: This is a very obscure, very short, and very odd little book.
But it affected me in my teens when I read it, and it was still a good read
recently.  It is about a "perfect" servant who attends to the needs of his
"masters" so well, that he actually has full control over them.  The
servant is the ultimate opiate, and the ultimate in manipulation by
presumed passivity.