What do you think?
Rate this book
Sacred Sorrows: Embracing and Transforming Depression
More than twenty-five contributors, including Erich Fromm, Thomas Moore, and Bruno Bettelheim, present a new interpretation of depression as part of one's psychological and spiritual growth and explore alternative approaches to its cure. Original.
- GenresPsychology
237 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 1996
1 person is currently reading
35 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 26, 2019
A worthwhile reader of very short essays or book-excerpts by 27 different experts, introducing a wide variety of promising, sometimes unusual, approaches to depression, with attention to a spiritual or “soulful” component, broadly defined, in combination with clinical expertise. Many of the essays were addressed to the professional treating depression but the language of the book is widely accessible.
The book is divided in three parts. Part One: Living with Depression, included stunning excerpts from William Styron’s book Darkness Visible, an account of his own experience with depression; and Bruno Bettelheim's Despair, Hope, and Survival, an account of his experience and observations of other prisoners' experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.
In Part Two: Transforming Depression most of the essays were addressed to practicing psychotherapists and psychiatrists, including Joanna Macy’s Despair Work, that discusses specific manifestations of depression that are driven by the environmental degradation of the earth. Peter D. Kramer, M.D.’s Prozac and Personality and editor John E. Nelson, M.D.’s Seeking the Spirit in Prozac address spiritual aspects of that pharmaceutical favorite that has helped many. In Alternative Medical Treatments for Depression Hyla Cass, M.D. explores other medical conditions/diseases that can produce depression-like symptoms but require completely different medical treatments.
Part Three: Embracing Depression, introduced many new-to-me ideas. Chaos Theory and Depression by Andrea Nelson, Psy. D., captured my imagination with her analogy (not, I think, a literal scientific correspondence) between the workings of the universe and the psyche. The Path of the Dragon: Psychedelic and Empathogenic Treatment of Depression by Shyloh Ravenswood explored the carefully expert-guided usage of traditional ceremonial hallucinogenic drugs such as peyote and mushrooms in ways that sometimes result in permanent healing, and other treatments currently illegal in the United States — putting the author in a difficult and professionally risky position. In Transforming Depression through Egocide: Symbolic Death and New Life David H. Rosen, M.D. offers a surprising, subtle approach that he developed by studying suicide and its survivors. He includes a moving account of his own interviews of individuals who survived very dramatic suicide attempts such as jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (which almost always results in death). Those individuals described an almost mystical (my word) experience, a deep peace and complete life transformation when rising up out of the water and discovering themselves still to be alive -- an experience not usually shared by survivors of more "ordinary" suicide methods. Very carefully, Dr. Rosen developed an approach to working with suicidal individuals that allows them, without actually jumping off a bridge, to experience a similar "symbolic death" leading to a "new life" that they actually want to live.
The book's final chapter, Gifts of Depression: Healing the Wounded Soul by Thomas Moore offers hints of his "polytheistic" (but nonreligious) theory of personality that honors and gives place to various aspects of human personality, including “melancholia,” whose characteristics were associated with the god Saturn. Moore’s 1992 book Care of the Soul was transformative in my life and his name on the cover probably got me to pick up this book years ago at a used book sale and now, finally, to read it.
The book is divided in three parts. Part One: Living with Depression, included stunning excerpts from William Styron’s book Darkness Visible, an account of his own experience with depression; and Bruno Bettelheim's Despair, Hope, and Survival, an account of his experience and observations of other prisoners' experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.
In Part Two: Transforming Depression most of the essays were addressed to practicing psychotherapists and psychiatrists, including Joanna Macy’s Despair Work, that discusses specific manifestations of depression that are driven by the environmental degradation of the earth. Peter D. Kramer, M.D.’s Prozac and Personality and editor John E. Nelson, M.D.’s Seeking the Spirit in Prozac address spiritual aspects of that pharmaceutical favorite that has helped many. In Alternative Medical Treatments for Depression Hyla Cass, M.D. explores other medical conditions/diseases that can produce depression-like symptoms but require completely different medical treatments.
Part Three: Embracing Depression, introduced many new-to-me ideas. Chaos Theory and Depression by Andrea Nelson, Psy. D., captured my imagination with her analogy (not, I think, a literal scientific correspondence) between the workings of the universe and the psyche. The Path of the Dragon: Psychedelic and Empathogenic Treatment of Depression by Shyloh Ravenswood explored the carefully expert-guided usage of traditional ceremonial hallucinogenic drugs such as peyote and mushrooms in ways that sometimes result in permanent healing, and other treatments currently illegal in the United States — putting the author in a difficult and professionally risky position. In Transforming Depression through Egocide: Symbolic Death and New Life David H. Rosen, M.D. offers a surprising, subtle approach that he developed by studying suicide and its survivors. He includes a moving account of his own interviews of individuals who survived very dramatic suicide attempts such as jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (which almost always results in death). Those individuals described an almost mystical (my word) experience, a deep peace and complete life transformation when rising up out of the water and discovering themselves still to be alive -- an experience not usually shared by survivors of more "ordinary" suicide methods. Very carefully, Dr. Rosen developed an approach to working with suicidal individuals that allows them, without actually jumping off a bridge, to experience a similar "symbolic death" leading to a "new life" that they actually want to live.
The book's final chapter, Gifts of Depression: Healing the Wounded Soul by Thomas Moore offers hints of his "polytheistic" (but nonreligious) theory of personality that honors and gives place to various aspects of human personality, including “melancholia,” whose characteristics were associated with the god Saturn. Moore’s 1992 book Care of the Soul was transformative in my life and his name on the cover probably got me to pick up this book years ago at a used book sale and now, finally, to read it.
May 10, 2015
A reader that covers depression from many viewpoints. Not really riveting, but interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews