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Loading... I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depressionby Terrence Real
   Tom's Bookstore (117) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) GlennBell | Nov 27, 2018 |  Way back in July or something I listened to the audio edition of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It: The Hidden Legacy of Male Depression" - a book by psychotherapist Terrence Real, recommended to my by my friends Jorge and Dave. He asserts, as I’ve long believed, that a majority of men in the US have depression. But unlike the overt depression we hear about that goes with suicide attempts and the like, Real proposes that most men have what he calls covert depression - a condition of which they’re not even aware, yet which can often manifest in addictive behavior and a general dissatisfaction with life/self. Lately I’ve been thinking about myself, and the people around me, and have realized that addictive behavior is rampant in our culture. Almost anything can be used addictively - whether it be alcohol, TV, Facebook, athletics, or even spirituality and love. I list these examples because they’re forms of addiction which I’ve personally experienced or witnessed. I was super into the book, and all the case studies. But I forgot to tell other people about because the book just peters out. The premise is bulletproof, but Real focuses more on the academic side of things that the DIY/handbook aspect of things - so I didn’t actually find the piece that helpful for identifying next steps for myself or those I support. It got me asking the question again - why are most US americans [the community with which I’m most familiar] depressed and addicted? It brought me back to my sustainable living class with John Gerber at UMass Amherest. Gerber proposed that we’re more interconnected than we are separate. In other words, we can’t be healthy if our community or planet isn’t healthy. It’s a theme echoed by Charles Eisenstein. I’d say that I’ve experienced this to be my truth as well. I do my best to take care of myself, but if I’m ever truly going to be healthy, the world’s going to need to be healthy as well. Maybe this is why Real didn’t address the bigger picture - it’s pretty daunting. I have identified one leverage point for these issues: our culture prefers externally-derived self-esteem to internally-generated self-esteem. Until people make this personal shift, we’re going to keep being addicted - filling that hole with things that can’t fit. (  ) willszal | Jan 3, 2016 |  ) MargaretPinardAuthor | May 23, 2015 | ) margaret.pinard | Jul 24, 2014 | I was both educated and moved to tears. It helped me understand my own struggles with depression as well as those of my father. (  )1  JerryColonna | Sep 3, 2012 |
 This is a hopeful and important book because it shows a way out of depression for men that carries with it a potential for ending a legacy of violence. The feminist movement has held men responsible for their violence and privilege. The mythopoetic men's movement has embraced men as wounded. Mr. Real synthesizes these views; his ability to hold men responsible while loving them allows him to get closer without being pulled under. In facing the violence done to men and the violence men do without removing himself or turning away from women, he takes the men's movement a significant step forward and opens up the dialogue about gender that the women's movement began 30 years ago. In understanding these psychological connections between men's inner feelings and outer deeds, while still holding men accountable for their hurtful actions against others, Real offers to readers (as well as to the male patients he sees in clinical practice) a way out of this boyhood bind of "Do it to him or we'll do it to you." By offering compassion to men regarding their shameful feelings, their fears of abandonment, and other hidden fears that they may have tucked in far away places, Real takes a first step in helping men develop a lost compassion for themselves. In turn, this may allow men to fully express that compassion to others. In a society where intense behavioral management, control, and severe punishment are meant to remedy the burgeoning of violent behaviors in young men and little boys, this book inspires us to reconsider that misguided approach. Violence begets violence, while only compassion with accountability can create the possibility of more compassion and open a way for men to talk about what they don't want to talk about--thus beginning the process of healing for all. Much of Real's argument has been made by other clinical and popular psychologists, but he states his case particularly vividly, drawing richly on his own family history, his clinical practice, myth and legend, film and fiction. He also offers advice and case studies on how the therapist might resolve depression by helping patients overcome their fear of intimacy and redefine their notion of success. He also recounts active therapeutic interventions to stop the kind of toxic family dynamics that a husband's depression can help generate. Awards
Self-Improvement.
Sociology.
Nonfiction.
Each year, millions of men and women fall prey to depression. While the disorder has been called "psychiatry's most treatable condition," less than one in five get help. In recent years, the silence surrounding depression in women has begun to lift, but only now, with this powerful groundbreaking work, does psychotherapist Terrence Real expose a virtual epidemic of the disorder in men.Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced Real that there are two forms of depression: "overt" and "covert." Feeling the stigma of depression's "unmanliness," many men hide their condition not only from family and friends but even from themselves. Attempts to escape depression fuel many of the problems we think of as typically male-difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage. By directing their pain outward, depressed men hurt the people they love, and, most tragically, pass their condition on to their children.A master storyteller, Real mixes penetrating analysis with poignant, compelling tales of the men and women whom he treats. He writes with passion and searing clarity about his own experiences with depression, as the son of a depressed, violent father, and the father of two young sons.Peggy Papp of the Ackerman Family Institute calls this book "a pathway out of the darkness." Real teaches us how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. I Don't Want to Talk About It offers great wisdom, hope, and practical guidance to men and their families. This is one of the most important and straightforward books ever written about men. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)616.85270081Technology Medicine and health Diseases Diseases of nervous system and mental disorders Miscellaneous Neuroses DepressionLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.04)
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