by Anne Sheffield
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Resources

Books and Web Sites on Depression and Bipolar Disorder

Books

According to amazon.com, there are 112,852 books to choose from if you’re looking for information about depression, 11,040 on bipolar disorder, 96,208 on mental illness, and 141,449 about mental health. The problem is how to figure out which are both reliable and useful. Here are some of Anne's favorite picks (links open in a new window):

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  • Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, M.D.
    This excellent book lays out all the evidence, clearly and persuasively and with copious foot notes, to prove that depression is a physical illness which, untreated or ineffectively treated, causes serious damage to the brain and body. Its links to cardiovascular disease are clear and undisputed - it even makes the blood platelets stickier. The chapters dealing with this chilling aspect of depression make up the second of three sections; the others run the gamut from history to Kramer's annoyance that somehow along the way depression acquired an undeserved reputation for producing melancholy charmers and geniuses.
     
  • Living Well With Depression and Bipolar Disorder: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You . . . That You Need to Know, by John McManamy.
    McManamy was diagnosed with bipolar disorder seven years ago and since then has created an exceptional web site, www.mcmanweb.com, and publishes the award-winning Depression and Bipolar Weekly. His book is a compendium of accurate information, compiled by a very smart, very savvy, and very informed bipolar sufferer - who spends far more time down than up, and can be found listening and taking notes at every major mental health symposium. And it's easy to read.
     
  • My Depression, A Picture Book, by Elizabeth Swados
    Swados can count among her many writing credits six children's books, three novels, and two works of nonfiction, as well as five Tony Award nominations and three Obie Awards for theatrical productions on and off Broadway despite a tenacious depression. After years of battling her inner demon alone, she finally got help, and then, says the book's jacket, "she picked up her pen and wrote and drew this book to help others." While it is surely the perfect book for a sullen teenager who refuses help, it's good for anyone and everyone. The line drawings are clever and funny, and they incredibly accurately convey exactly what it's like to be depressed and what goes wrong as a result. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is just for little kids!
     
  • The Peace of Mind Prescription: An Authoritative Guide to Finding the Most Effective Treatment for Anxiety and Depression, by Dennis S. Charney, M.D. and Charles B. Nemeroff, M.D. 
    This is much more than an authoritative book about depression, anxiety and bipolar illness by two outstanding experts: Charney is chief of the Mood and Anxiety Disorder Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health; Charles Nemeroff is chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University’s School of Medicine. What makes it outstanding is the approach to depressive illness as a physical rather than psychological disorder, one intimately linked to many serious illnesses including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Its matter-of-fact tone makes it the only book of its kind that I recommend depression sufferers and their loved ones read together without fear of antagonism and dissent.
     
  • The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, by Andrew Solomon. 
    Andrew must by now be the best-known depression sufferer in the world, and with good reason. This is a 443-page tour de force about depression, its history, how treatment has evolved, and pretty much everything else you could ever want to know about this illness. You may not want to read it from cover to cover in one go, but you need it in your library. I turn to it over and over again as a readable, encyclopedic, and totally reliable source. Example: a couple of months ago I emailed Andrew to ask the source of a startling statistic I had not seen elsewhere; he emailed back an impeccable source within twenty-four hours.
     
  • An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, by Kay Redfield Jamison.
    Kay Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and co-author of the standard medical textbook on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness. She has been a bipolar sufferer since her teens, but hid her illness from her peers because she feared they would no longer give credence to her studies on bipolar illness if they knew she was herself bipolar. This is her “outing” book, and what a wonderful book it is. Along with her many other talents, Jamison is an exceptionally accomplished writer. It’s difficult to imagine a bipolar sufferer or family member who wouldn’t gain mightily from this book.
     
  • Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jamison. 
    As many as 15% of all depression and bipolar sufferers commit suicide. Kay Jamison herself thought of it often, and has written the definitive book on this topic.
     
  • Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, by Kay Redfield Jamison. 
    This is the first book I read about depressive illness. I picked it up, not because I thought it would have any relevance to my own life (although depressed off and on for years, I was unaware that this was the source of my discontent), but because I was interested in creativity. I was well-rewarded by this fascinating study on the interaction between the ups and downs of bipolar disorder and creativity. Reading it renders it impossible to view depression and mania as stigmatizing conditions that should be hidden from the world. Using diaries and letters as well as published works, Jamison takes the reader on a tour of 19th and 20th century greats of literature, art, and music.
     
  • Undercurrents: A Therapist’s Reckoning with Her Own Depression, by Martha Manning. 
    This is an irresistible book, one of the first and best personal memoirs of depression. Martha Manning, a Washington, D.C. practicing clinical psychologist, was struck in her prime by major depression and eventually resorted to ECT when all other treatments failed. “Undercurrents” is an honest, courageous, touching, and, believe me, extremely funny account of her descent into despair and reentry into life via ECT. This book is for all depression sufferers, not just those contemplating ECT treatment.
     
  • Should You Leave? by Peter Kramer, M.D.
    Kramer put depression on the public map with his bestseller, “Listening to Prozac,” (which still is, incidentally, a very good read). If you and/or your spouse are thinking of divorce for your respective reasons, check out the index of this book and read a superb, accurate description of the depression sufferer’s conviction that he/she is no longer in love.
     
  • Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn’t Teach You and Medication Can’t Give You, by Richard O’Connor, Ph.D.
    I approached this book with a load of antipathy and disbelief because the majority of advice books I had read by depression sufferers had struck me as inaccurate and inadequate. Richard O’Connor gets it right. One of the reasons I love this book is that Richard, a psychotherapeutic social worker who was writing it to help his depressed clients, was half way through the manuscript when, with the help of his psychotherapist, it finally dawned on him that he, too, was depressed. The down to earth tone makes the advice and coping strategies offered palatable to depression sufferers. The best of its kind.
     
  • Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, by William Styron.
    Bill Styron, Mike Wallace, and Art Buchwald are longtime close friends and also depression pioneers who decided to come out of the closet and tell the world about their illnesses well before other famous and successful sufferers joined them. Weighing in at only 84 pages, Newsweek accurately reviewed this memoir: “As short as a hangman’s rope and nearly as arresting.” When your depressed beloved says you don’t understand him, give him this book and tell him that you have an inkling of what it’s like to be depressed.
     
  • I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, by Terrence Real
    Statistically speaking, men are less apt to suffer from depression than women, but it seems to be even harder for them to accept the diagnosis, which they inaccurately equate with weakness. Terrence Real is a Boston-based psychotherapist who has treated many male depression sufferers and the insights he offers are accurate and helpful. There is much to praise about this book, but beware of the Real's bias, which is that psychotherapy can cure all depressions.

Web Sites

There are a growing number of resources on the Internet for friends, families, and significant others of those with a depressive illness. Many of the resources for friends and family are contained within sites devoted primarily to depression or bipolar illness. All links open in a new window. 

Anne's book, Depression Fallout, The Impact of Depression on Couples and What You Can Do to Preserve the Bond, contains an extensive list of internet resources for those suffering depression fallout.

If you know of a site that belongs on this list, please let Anne know. 
If you find a link that doesn't work, please email the webmaster (link below).
 
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Page Last Updated April 26, 2007