Dismantling depression patterns

Depression is not a fixed "thing," and despite the overmarketing by pharmaceutical companies, treatment centers, talk shows, and books that suggest thinking of depression as a disease "just like diabetes," the best evidence so far shows that for most people, depression is not a biologically based disease. They have exaggerated the "disease model" of depression and the value of antidepressant medications. Biology is only part of the story of depression, and antidepressants are only part of the overall solution. For most people, depression is the result of a harmful way of interpreting and responding to life experiences. Depression involves a complex set of interpretations about yourself, life, the universe, and everything. Interpretation means your way of understanding the meaning of something ambiguous or unclear. Dr. Michael Yapko, through his book, helps us recognize depression through its patterns, whether they are patterns in thinking and behavior or in relationships with people, the world, and things.