Depression Is Contagious : How the Most Common Mood Disorder Is Spreading Around the World and How to Stop It

Depression is the world’s most common mood disorder, and it is spreading like a viral contagion. You can’t catch depression in the same way you catch a cold, but the latest research provides overwhelming support that moods spread through social conditions, defining depression as more a social problem than a medical illness. Our social lives directly shape our brain chemistry and powerfully affect the way we think and feel—and our brains can change for the better with healthy social circumstances as much as they can change with medication. Drugs may address some of depression’s symptoms, but Dr. Yapko convincingly argues that we need to treat depression at its root, by building social skills and improving relationships, in order to halt the spread of this debilitating disorder. Filled with practical exercises and illustrative examples, his groundbreaking plan guides readers to identify key social patterns that reinforce depression so they can learn the skills to overcome depression and even prevent new episodes from occurring. Provocative and controversial as well as prescriptive and hopeful, Depression Is Contagious investigates the social phenomenon of depression’s epidemic-like spread while offering a more realistic road to recovery.

Depression is the world's most common mood disorder, and it's spreading fast: at the current rate, the World Health Organization predicts it will leap from the fourth to the second greatest cause of human suffering and disability in the world by the year 2020. And the shocking spread of this debilitating disorder isn't fated by brain chemistry, genes, diet, or personal weakness, as we're too often taught — rather, the latest research provides overwhelming evidence that depression is far more a social problem than a medical disease. Depression doesn't just infect a single individual and then stay contained within him or her. Depression's effects reach into the interactions you have with others, rippling destructively through marriages, families, work environments, and communities like a viral contagion. Drugs can't repair or protect your relationship from depression, but the skills expert psychologist Dr. Michael D. Yapko teaches us in this powerful book can.

Dr. Yapko has identified the types of relationship patterns that lead to negative ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others and culls from the latest findings in neuroscience, social psychology, epidemiology, and genetics to provide a practical, proven plan for developing the skills and insights you need to forge stronger, healthier social connections — and enjoy an enriching, interconnected life. While commonly prescribed drugs address some of depression's symptoms, they cannot change the social factors that cause and perpetuate the disorder. Indeed, by treat-ing a social condition as though it's a disease, the problems compound rather than diminish. The foundation for recovery is to build a healthy social life based on understanding what to expect from our relationships, what we should give, and how to relate to and accept others — skills that have been neglected by modern society. Dr. Yapko's groundbreaking plan of action — filled with skill-building emotional and mental exercises, anecdotes, and illuminating explanations — shows how to:

• Think about depression in realistic ways that actually empower you to overcome it.

• Readjust your expectations of others so that you can accurately assess people and situations to avoid disappointment.

• Get off the merry-go-round of repetitive, anxious, and depressing thoughts.

• Interact with others without spreading negativity, or absorbing theirs, even when you think you can't.

• Develop motivating perspectives about your relationships in order to improve them.

• Reduce your children's vulnerability to depression.

• Build close and enduring relationships that support and fulfill you.

Provocative and groundbreaking, Depression Is Contagious is a complete path of recovery through people, not pills. You can nurture the relationships that will lift you — and those around you — out of depression. This empowering prescription for hope and healing shows how.

Library Journal

Is this a book about the epidemiology of depression? About why life in developed countries seems to cause high levels of the condition? Not exactly. A more descriptive title would be A Depressive's Complete Guide to Relationships. Clinical psychologist Yapko (Breaking the Patterns of Depression) asserts that too little attention has been paid to the social causes of depression. Depressed people have poor social skills, which both cause and perpetuate the depression. The bulk of the book consists of prescriptions and exercises intended to improve the reader's social skills. These mostly boil down to Think first, which is certainly a good idea. VERDICT Yapko offers no objective proof for his central thesis, and his program seems too broad to be of much use. Self-help books for depression are always in demand in public libraries, but an extra copy of Mary Ellen Copeland and Matthew McKay's The Depression Workbook will be a more helpful offering in most public library collections.—Mary Ann Hughes, formerly with Neill P.L., Pullman, WA

Depression is more of a social problem than a medical illness, reveals expert psychologist Dr. Michael Yapko, whose revolutionary new approachbased on the latest researchtreats depression with positive social relationships, not drugs. Depression is now the worlds most common mood disorder, and is spreading like a viral contagion. You cant catch depression in the same way you catch a cold, but the latest research in neuroscience, social psychology, epidemiology, and genetics provides overwhelming support that moods spread through social conditions. Our social lives directly shape our brain chemistry and powerfully affect the way we think and feel; our brains change with positive life experiences and can change as much with social circumstances as with medication. Drugs may address some of depressions symptoms, but they cannot change the social factors that cause and perpetuate it. Indeed, Dr. Yapko argues convincingly, by treating a social condition as though its a disease, the problems will spread rather than diminish. In Depression Is Contagious , Dr. Yapko identifies the patterns often seen in modern relationships that lead to depression and provides practical exercises that will help readers develop the skills and insights they need to forge stronger, healthier social connections. This practical, definitive book provides an empowering prescription for hope and healing through people, not pills. Depression doesn't arise in a social vacuum -- The social foundation of depression -- Other people are not just like you : frames of reference -- Flexibility, and acceptance -- Expectations and relationship satisfaction : learn to assess -- Others realistically -- Thinking too much and too deeply : learn to take -- Action -- Don't bring others down with you : learn to lighten up -- Self-deception and seeking the truth : learn to test your -- Beliefs -- Drawing the lines : protect your personal boundaries -- Marriage can save your life : how to keep yours healthy -- Hand-me-down blues : learn to reduce your child's depression inheritance