When Someone You Love is Depressed - Softcover

Amador, Xavier

 
9780684834078: When Someone You Love is Depressed
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0684834073 ISBN 13: 9780684834078
Verlag: Free Press, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Many books have been written for those suffering from depression, but what if you're suffering becuase someone you love is depressed? Research shows that if you are close to a depressed person, you are at a much higher risk of developing problems yourself, including anxiety, phobias, and even a kind of contagious depression.
In this authoritative and compassionate book, psychologists Laura Epstein Rosen and Cavier Francisco Amador explain the mechanisms of depression that can cause communication breakdown, increase hostility, and ultimately destroy relationships. Through compelling real-life stories and step-by-step advice, the authors teach concrete methods that you and your loved one can use to protect yourselves and your relationship from depression's impact. Drawing on their own innovative research, the give sensitive guidance about how to recognize your needs, how to provide the best kind of support, and how to encourage the depressed person to seek treatment. Whether you are the partner, parent, friend, or child of a depressed person, you'll find this book and invaluable companion in you journey back to health.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Xavier Amador, Ph.D., the coauthor of When Someone You Love Is Depressed and the psychology and health contributor for NBC's weekend Today show, is Director of the Diagnoses and Evaluation Center at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Laura Epstein Rosen, Ph.D., is Supervisor of Family Therapy Training at the Special Needs Clinic of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Many books have been written for those suffering from depression, but what if you're suffering becuase someone you love is depressed? Research shows that if you are close to a depressed person, you are at a much higher risk of developing problems yourself, including anxiety, phobias, and even a kind of contagious depression.
In this authoritative and compassionate book, psychologists Laura Epstein Rosen and Cavier Francisco Amador explain the mechanisms of depression that can cause communication breakdown, increase hostility, and ultimately destroy relationships. Through compelling real-life stories and step-by-step advice, the authors teach concrete methods that you and your loved one can use to protect yourselves and your relationship from depression's impact. Drawing on their own innovative research, the give sensitive guidance about how to recognize your needs, how to provide the best kind of support, and how to encourage the depressed person to seek treatment. Whether you are the partner, parent, friend, or child of a depressed person, you'll find this book and invaluable companion in you journey back to health.

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Chapter 1

How Does Your Loved One's Depression Affect You?

Jane, a thirty-six-year-old advertising executive, has been feeling overwhelmed with her new responsibilities. In addition to her full-time job and two children, she has recently begun to take over many of her husband's customary chores, such as paying the bills, servicing their car, and fixing things around the house. For the past several months, her husband has not been sleeping well; he feels unmotivated and tired, and complains of feeling blue. Jane knows that he is not feeling well and feels sorry for him -- but she is beginning to resent him.

Peter, a twenty-eight-year-old accountant, has not been sleeping and has been having trouble concentrating at work. Since the birth of their son four months ago, his wife has been moody and disinterested in sex. He misses the closeness with her and feels sad about the state of their marriage. He is reluctant to talk to her about his concerns because he does not want to make her more upset. Rather than express his feelings, he spends more time playing golf with his buddies.

Gail, a fifty-five-year-old homemaker, has not done any laundry or been food shopping or spent any time with her friends for several weeks. She has been preoccupied with worry about her elderly mother's worsening hopelessness and recent statement that "there is nothing left to live for." Because she is worried that her mother will harm herself, Gail travels an hour each day to visit and try to cheer her up. As a result, Gail is falling behind in her household chores, she feels that she is neglecting her friends, and her husband has begun to complain.

The specific details may be different, but Jane, Peter, and Gail all have something in common: They are affected by a loved one's depression. Jane feels overburdened and resentful. Peter is lonely and worried about his marriage. Gail's fear and guilt about her mother are taking her away from her other responsibilities. All of them want to help their loved one but are having reactions to the depression themselves. Because they are so busy caretaking, Jane, Peter, and Gall have not noticed how they too have been affected by depression.

When Peter first came to therapy to discuss his concerns about his wife, he spoke at length about her sadness and lack of energy. As a caring husband, he was understandably concerned about her adjustment to motherhood. He described all the ways in which her depressed mood had affected her personality, from her lack of interest in sex and her usual activities, to her irritability with their infant. When he was asked about how her depression had affected him, he paused and said, "I guess only in that I care about how she feels." When he was encouraged to think further about his reactions to her depression, he reluctantly revealed that he felt lonely and scared. Peter admitted that he had not been paying attention to how he was handling the situation because he was so caught up in his wife's problems. Only after he had begun to pay attention to his own reactions and feelings was he able to talk to his wife about the changes in their relationship and encourage her to seek help for her depression.

How Can Someone Else's Depression Affect You?

If you love someone who is depressed, you may be unaware of how the depression affects you. You may be so intent on helping the other person that you are blind to ways in which you are affected. Yet if you begin to reflect on your interactions with the depressed person, you may begin to recognize that indeed you do have important feelings and reactions. Perhaps you have felt frustrated with your spouse for being antisocial and overly pessimistic. Or maybe you have become annoyed or worried about your best friend who does not seem able to snap out of the blues. Our experience as therapists and the results of recent research studies have convinced us that everyone benefits when feelings and reactions to a loved one's depression are understood and acted upon constructively. In short, it is essential to your own emotional well-being and that of your depressed loved one that you pay attention to your reactions and feelings. If you recall your last interaction with the depressed person in your life, you will undoubtedly recall some feeling or reaction that you previously did not think about:

This shift in focus is a central part of our work as therapists. Experience and research have taught us that inattention to feelings and reactions is often at the root of many relationship problems people experience with a depressed loved one, and relationship problems almost always worsen a depression. In the chapters that follow, we will help you learn how to recognize the various ways in which you are affected by your loved one's depression. For some of you, it may be easier than it will be for others. For those of you who are natural caretakers, it may not be easy to think about yourself rather than focusing solely on the depressed person. However, it will be well worth your effort. It will give you the tools you need to help your relationship survive the depression.

As you read, you may discover that depression is affecting you in ways that you have not realized. But don't worry, we do not intend to leave you mired in this new knowledge without tools to do something about it. We will give you specific step-by-step guidelines as to how to use your reactions to get along better with the depressed person, to increase your sense of hopefulness, and to be a more skilled helper in the fight against the depression. Before we provide these skills, you will need to understand the various ways that depression can affect you and your relationship. We will describe in detail the most common effects of depression on relationships. After a brief review of new research on this topic we will end the chapter with a description of the four stages of adaptation to depression. In the following chapters we will teach you how to alter your passage through these stages to improve your adaptation and response to the depression.

Depression and Your Relationship

Depression is a devastating disorder for the depressed person. We all know that depression affects mood, sleep patterns, appetite, motivation, and even the will to live. But what many people do not realize is the extent to which depression affects relationships. If your partner is depressed, your marriage is nine times more likely to end in divorce than if you were married to a nondepressed person. This staggering statistic is not the only indicator of how destructive depression can be to relationships. The close relationships of depressed people are more stressful and conflictual than the relationships of nondepressed people, and arguments and misunderstandings are much more common. In this context, it comes as no surprise that depression, and sexual problems caused by depression, are the most common reasons couples seek marital counseling and that approximately 50 percent of depressed women complain of serious marital problems. The relatives of depressed people have also been found to suffer from increased worry, resentment, and exhaustion. In fact, people who live with a depressed person are more prone to depression themselves and have a higher risk for other emotional problems, such as anxiety and phobias.

Why should depression lead to such severe relationship difficulties and even harm to nondepressed family and friends? Think about it. If you are lonely and resentful because your wife has been blue for several weeks and never wants to do anything with you, you might respond to her request for help around the house by sighing and looking disgruntled. She senses your resentment and feels unsupported, more helpless, and more depressed -- reactions that feed your resentment and loneliness. Researchers have described this kind of interaction...

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Verlag
Free Press
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0684834073
ISBN 13 
9780684834078
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
AA Utrecht
3584
Niederlande

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ISBN 10:  0684824078 ISBN 13:  9780684824079
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Hardcover