Review of Learning to cope with depression and manic depression: A workbook for people who experience extreme high and low moods and for people who love and support them .

Abstract

Reviews the book, Learning to Cope with Depression and Manic Depression: A Workbook for People Who Experience Extreme High and Low Moods and for People Who Love and Support Them by Mary Ellen Copeland (1991). The self-help movement has grown tremendously and attained acceptability and credibility over the last decade. The book is an important contribution to that movement. The book provides an opportunity for those people who experience depression and manic depression, and their support persons, to better understand these conditions and how they can be managed. The book’s premise is that by following a wellness program, which includes simple, safe, non evasive and inexpensive self help techniques, combined with appropriate treatment strategies as needed, extreme mood swings can at least be alleviated, and, in many cases, eliminated. The book utilizes a workbook format that allows readers to proceed step by step through each chapter, analyzing the nature of their problem, seeing how others have coped, and developing their own solutions. Although the book has a workbook format, it is very readable and full of information, both for those who have had these experiences and other readers. The tone of the book is realistic but hopeful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)