Depression Books

I thought this was a lovely book, an intriguing story of two kinds of Mormon faith (one devout, the other not so devout), and the struggles that the characters face in making their way as a family and as individuals in both their small Mormon community and in the greater world. It is an inside view into Mormonism, the people, and a time when Mormonism was just about to emerge on to the larger scene. (It is a look back in time to when the Mormon Church had not yet made worldwide impact, back when it was more of just a regional force in the Intermountain West.) It chronicles the life of Harriet, a young widow and committed member of the church, who marries Hank, a young widower who is not a true believer and who was never quite comfortable in the formal religion. Even so, Harriet and Hank work together to raise their three sons who face their own unique challenges. For those outside the faith, this is a nice introduction to real figures in Mormonism. For those who are in the faith, this book will feel "real," an account of everyday people. I felt as if I had met people just like the characters in this book. I highly recommend this book.

Speedwell is the story of Mary, a young girl living in England during the Great Depression. She helps her father raise homing pigeons and train them to race, and she dreams that one day one of their birds will win a race. But her father loses his job, and has to go to another village to find work. Mary tries to carry on training the pigeons alone, in spite of her mother's disdain for the birds. Eventually, their differing points of view lead to a crisis during which Mary and her mother learn to be more tolerant and understanding of each other. This is a charming book with lots of accurate details about raising and training racing pigeons

A Review written by Elizabeth Prickett, Winchester/GB:
Although this book has particular relevance for mental health professionals, it is also of great interest to a non-specialist reader like myself. Dr. Heinl's account of the methods he uses to uncover war-induced childhood trauma, occluded from adult consciousness but still crippling adult lives, is riveting and persuasive in itself. But he also opens up two areas of topical significance, even for people who have not suffered in this way. The first is his exploration of the faculty of intuition, which he has learnt to employ and rely on more and more. After a series of brief and surprising factual accounts of his procedure in individual cases, he discusses at length the development and rationale of his approach. It emerges that intuition - supported, of course, by long therapeutic experience and a wide background knowledge of wartime conditions, and, one must add, by aperhaps unusual open-minded sensitivity,-- has proved its worth again and again in his work. By "its own self-organizing, non-conscious processes" it has been more succesful for him than either logical thinking or the application of the established psychoanalytical methods.

His claims for the efficacy of being willing to wait in silence for the promptings of intuition to emerge, and then acting on them, are supported by the inclusion in the extensive bibliography at the end of the book of works which record the role of intuition in less personal fields of discovery such as science and mathematics.

His other major message, particularly timely just now, is his wake-up call about the long-lasting, seeping, often unrecognized, after-effects of all forms of war trauma in infancy. Material damage and shattered economies may be made good in a generation, but there needs to be more recognition of the cruel and sometimes irreversible harm done by the war on the psychological development of children, then carried over into their adult lives: brutally severed or distorted early relationships, deprivation from hunger or exposure, homelessness,terror, loss of security at all levels and of any peaceful nurturing or carefree times, all these and the like, take a lasting toll. And those who have suffered such things, unconsciously and through no fault of their own, are less well equipped when they become parents themselves, and so their own children are affected too. All this is NOT solved within a generation.

Thanks to many new strands of thinking, new experiments in peace-building, and books such as this one, realization of these harsh facts is gaining ground. May the day come when it will at last have fully entered the consciousness of leaders and politicians, and will influence radically all international negotiations and strategies.

Incredibly well written... an absolute page turner! I loved this book, the descriptive narrative was enthralling. I recommend this book to anyone, especially anyone who has lived in the Canadian north!

The writer recounts his experience straight from the heart.He shares his story in a heartfelt manner. He lets us journey inside his mind in a touching manner. I highly recommend this book.

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Wonderful book! The author unleashed her true feelings through journal entries and poetry about what it is like to go down the post partum depression spiral. The writing is honest and true to what was going through her head. It will definitely show new mothers that if they are feeling the same types of emotions (sometimes even morbid) they don't have to be ashamed--that they should go get help before it's too late.

This novel, set before and into the Depression, covers Christopher Bennett's rise and fall as an executive in the Balding Company of Aviland, the midwestern city he and Joy have inhabited after leaving the farm back in Bennettsville. Also in Aviland from Bennettville is Madeleine Greaves, who completes a love triangle. Madeleine, the one clear-seeing character, is the most tragic, for Chris rises and falls in a fog, barely sensing the truths of his situation.He is a "natural" leader, not given to clear reflection.

As a novel of business, The Story of a Country Boy rejects any
easy Marxian analysis. Chris is deluded about being one of the
workers, but the workers aren't magnanimous or heroic. The bitter
process-server who becomes a radical street speaker says it all:
he's an unpleasant, ungenerous, vindictive creature.

I admired the slowness of the pacing, the way Powell lets big
changes occur so gradually that the characters are caught by
surprise.But can a man in a such a fog really rise to corporate
power? And can a clear-thinking, self-knowing woman really become
overwhelmingly enamored of such a man?

Powell's sentences are deft:
Yes, the dining room as Tannahill had said was a
really charming little room with its blue walls and
Wedgwood medallions, its little ivory balconies filled
with flowers, its softly lit tables, its hush so
compelling that, defiant as she already felt, it was
impossible for her to raise her voice above a whisper.
(54 words). There were only four other diners as they
entered, a gaunt old gentleman with a Van Dyke and
monocle with his elaborately décolleté, jaundiced wife;
she sat, hands folded, her broken bitter face caught to
her body with a rhinestone and velvet neck ribbon, her
sagging bones somehow organized for the evening under a
green brocade gown. (57 words) pp.241-242.

There's wit, too, as in the sentence that follows the two above:

The couple, created out of much-labeled steamer trunks
and exuding a faint aura of camphor balls, gloomily
permitted bouillon to enter into their chill esophageal
caverns and did not speak to each other, having
finished their conversation at least twenty years
ago.(43 words)

Finishing reading this novel, I wanted to discuss it with some
other reader. I went to the Web and found nothing beyond
publishers' blurbs and directives to my edition's own forward by
Powell biographer Tim Page. What did this book mean in its day?
What were the issues that Powell felt showed the keen edge of her
thought? At the distance of nearly 70 years, I want to see the
work as an examination of human nature, of "love," of limitation.
"Only intelligent women get their lives in such messes,"
Madeleine considers at the end. "They get too smart for their own
feelings, they try to control them and perhaps that's why they're
so miserable in love. . .or they want their self-respect and love
both, or security with love, and love doesn't go with anything
but agony and jealousy and humiliation and pain" (299).
In the end Joy, the wife, misses her bottle of Dom;
Madeleine, alone now, sees what everything's cost and who has
paid; and Chris, back at the family farm, clueless given his
Teflon heart, faces the Bennetsville night "free and incredibly
happy."

This study was full of stories I could relate to and practical application that helped me get through some difficult days. It also helped me clearly explain some of what of what I was experiencing with those who loved and cared for me.

I am not a medical doctor, but I've studied medical and scientific findings into the brain's plasticity, and The Stress Answer relates coping strategies based on the latest discoveries into the workings of what's often called "three pounds of infinity." Jeffrey Satinover, Norman Doidge, V. S. Ramachandran, et. al., corroborate what Dr. Lawlis integrates in his chapters on storms of various stresses. He provides 45 days of useful exercises to coping with--and reducing stress. You do not have to follow his schedule to the letter. But I recommend doing one or two exercises daily until you have finished all of them. If you are serious about improving the quality of your life, then you should start at day one and go through the exercises again. This kind of repetition will not be boring; in fact, the more you repeat them, the less anxiety you will feel. I know. I did them. Instead of wasting 60 minutes of your life feeling anxious and depressed, invest that 60 minutes into yourself. Isn't it logical to invest your energy into feeling better instead of feeling blue? Excuse me while I rehearse positive imagery for my next book review.