Listening to Depression

Honos-Webb, Lara

• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Year: 1010
• eBook ISBN: 9781572247451

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 our lives. Listening to Depression offers insightful ways to reframe depression as a gift that can help you transform your life for the better.

Each chapter discusses a different aspect of depression as a positive opportunity for growth or change. Depression can be the start of a reorientation in life, a step in the search for meaning, or a chance for letting go of hurtful aspects of the self. It can also be a chance to deal with grief and loss and learn to expand your potential. The book concludes with a section of advice about when it is important to defend against depression and how best to go about it when the need arises.

Table of contents

• Contents
• 1. How Cutting Off Depression Makes It Worse
• 2. The Gifts of Depression as Stages of a Journey
• 3. Depression as a Reorientation
• 4. Depression as a Search for Meaning
• 5. Depression as an Inner Revolution
• 6. Depression as a Way of Reclaiming Grief
• 7. Depression as Enlightenment: Embracing Emptiness
• 8. Depression as an Expansion of the Allowable
• 9. Depression as Freedom from Seeking Approval
• 10. Depression as an Opening to the Mysterious
• 11. In Defense of Defensiveness
• 12. Final Thoughts
• References
• About the Author