Self-Management of Depression

You probably have heard or read a few self-help books on depression. Here's a new book  The Complete Guide to Self-Management of Depression ,  which to date is the most comprehensive self-help book on depression, and will change how depression is treated in the future. What makes this book different from others is highlighted by the following features unique to this book: 1. Depression is a complex illness, which presents in a myriad of ways and almost 60-70% people treated with antidepressants fail to achieve a symptom-free state when first treated with these medications. The treatment of depression cannot be pigeon-holed into one or two kinds of treatment modalities. This book offers the reader a broad menu of options for self-management of depression above and beyond medications. 2. Self-management is increasingly becoming the standard of care in people with long-standing medical conditions. Self-management puts one in the driver's seat with regards...

What is Self Assessment? Unlike other fields of medicine where illnesses can be diagnosed using laboratory tests or imaging techniques, psychiatry heavily relies on an individual’s account of their current and past symptoms. This is also true for depression. However, recounting one’s depressive symptoms without using an objective self-assessment tool is fraught with inaccuracies. People overemphasize symptoms that need urgent attention and miss some, especially if they are unaware of the full spectrum of depressive symptoms. What are the Available Tools for Self-Assessment? The internet is flooded with the so-called "depression tests" with questionable validity. The following self-assessment tools have been extensively used in research and/or clinical settings and can be downloaded for no charge from the internet.  Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self Report (QIDS-SR 16 ): This is a 16-item self-rating scale used for screening depression or assessi...

You probably have heard or read a few self-help books on depression. Here's a new book The Complete Guide to Self-Management of Depression: Practical and Proven Methods , which to date is the most comprehensive self-help book on depression, and will change how depression is treated in the future. What makes this book different from others is highlighted by the following features unique to this book: 1. Depression is a complex illness, which presents in a myriad of ways and almost 60-70% people treated with antidepressants fail to achieve a symptom-free state when first treated with these medications. The treatment of depression cannot be pigeon-holed into one or two kinds of treatment modalities. This book offers the reader a broad menu of options for self-management of depression above and beyond medications. 2. Self-management is increasingly becoming the standard of care in people with long-standing medical conditions. Self-management puts one in the driver...

What is self-management? You probably have heard the term “self-help” and may have also read a few self-help books. Most self-help books on depression focus on acute treatment of depression based on a particular model of therapy, usually the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). While the self-help approach tries to address a condition using a focused treatment modality over a short period of time, self-management is learning new ways to manage an illness over a longer period of time. In other words, self-management is using the resources and learning the skills to “positively manage” an illness (Lorig et al., 2006). Lorig and colleagues (2006) further elaborate on self-management; it is a “management style” wherein you are a positive self-manager who not only uses the best treatments provided by healthcare professionals, but also approach your illness in a proactive manner on a daily basis, leading to a more healthy life. For example, good self-managers of diabetes, besides ta...