Depression: How this Book may Help Your Patients

Jill Maschio's experience with depression provides an example of how an integrated approach to couneleing can be therapeutic. This book approaches the widespread devastation of depression by combining theories of cognitive, behavioral, gestalt, feminist, exitential, and humanistic psychology. Jill's experience with overcoming depression is that learning critical thinking concepts and appling the concepts to thinking and emotions is an effective method for overcoming depression. Jill believes that the lack of critical thinking skills is the cause of the depression she once struggled with and that her depression was not due to any other biological or genetic factors.

This book teaches the educational skills that Jill learned and how to apply them to problem-solving, communication, perception, and coping. Jill believes that teaching critical thinking skills may help adults make the transition into therapy by having the basic skill to challenge thoughts associated with depression. The following will explain what critical thinking is.

Thinking and Critical Thinking: Jean Piaget defined thinking as an active process where, through perception, people mentally organize their world through transformation (dynamic) thinking (Piaget, 1961). All humans can think. Thinking is the cognitive ability to make observations and generalizations, have perceptions, form opinions, make assumptions, and draw conclusions. Humans do this repeatedly throughout the course of a day and without any conscious awareness of doing it.

The term critical thinking can be viewed as an expansion of Piaget’s definition of thinking. It couples the traditional meaning of thinking with the meaning of critical, which includes exercising careful judgment or judicious evaluation, having the inclination to criticize severely and unfavorably, and a being of state that experiences some quality, property, or phenomenon changes (Merriam-Webster, 2008). In this sense, critical thinking can mean the active process of thinking, but it additionally involves applying a standard of evaluation that is more scientific (or rigorous). Robert Ennis (1993) suggested that critical thinking is “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” (p. 180).

Background on Critical Thinking

Paul and Elder (2007) explained that “critical thinking is where the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it” (p. 2). Being able to apply critical thinking to one’s own thoughts takes skill and practice. It requires making a deliberate effort to analyze one's thoughts.

Critical thinking is essential not only for making both everyday and more complex decisions, but also for effective problem-solving and communicating. Some examples of how critical thinking skills enable more effective thinking include: being able to identify when claims in ads are unreliable and packed with emotional terms; being able to recognize when there is a lack of information before making a purchasing decision for a product that claims to save you money; being able to understand that because some political figure said a plan is good for our economy, doesn't necessarily make it so, and because one bad experience with the sales represenative doesn’t mean that you'll have bad experiences with sales representatives in the future.

If your patient has not been taught critical thinking skills, these skills may be just what your client is in need of. Jill proposes the idea that patients, who develop critical thinking skills, are more equipped with the ability to meet the challenges of therapies that facilitate patients with change or insight (e.g., Adlerian therapy, Cognitive therapy, Existential, Person-Centered therapy, Gestalt, REBT, Reality therapy, Feminist therapy, Postmodern approaches, and psychoanalysis).

Not only is this book a great place to begin overcoming depression, there are other benefits, as well.

This book can have additional cognitive function benefits. Take neurogenesis for instance. Neurogenesis is simply the brain's ability to take new experiences and form new neurons that lead to new brain growth and brain connections. Neurons are the brain's transportation of communication. You're probably asking why this matters. Well, the lack of neurogenesis in the brain may be associated with depression. Stress may be one cause for the death of neurons and inhibit neurogenesis. However, the increase of neurogenesis might help with recovery of depression. One way to help increase neurogenesis is through education because learning increases more connections between brain cells. Much like water and sun is essential for grass to grow; education is to the brain.

For more information on this topic, I recommend the following articles.

A Controversial New Theory Links Depression to the Inability to Grow New Brain Cells. (2004) Forbes Magazine. Vol. 173, Issue 2.

Christian Mirescu, Jennifer D. Peters and Elizabeth Gould. (August 2004).
Early Life Experiences Alters Response of Adult Neurogenesis to Stress.
Nature Neuroscience. Vol. 7.

Glaser, Danya. (2000). Environmental Influences on Brain Development.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Gage. Fred H. (2003). Repair Yourself. How Do You Fix a Broken Brain.
Scientific American, Inc.

Curtis, Wayne. (2007). Sound Body, Sound Mind. Who Knew? Exercising
Strengthens Your Muscles and Your Brain. Continental

"I found this book to be valuable and believe it can be very helpful to those who are dealing with depression as well as professionals who treat people with depression. I feel people dealing with mild to moderate depression can read this on their own and do the exercises for their growth and benefit. I believe professionals can use this book as the textbook to start and facilitate a psycho-educational group on depression. I feel people dealing with deeper, and perhaps endogenous depression, would be served to use the book as an adjunct to seeing a psychotherapist."
 
 Bob Edelstein, LMFT, MFT

“I think the book is easy to read, informative, and comprehensive. I t seems like a good common sense approach that most people can relate with and a useful book for them to manage the experience of feeling depressed. I liked the ‘workbook’ aspect of it, and I think this is a useful readable book.”

Paul Murray, Ph.D

Jill Maschio's book, When Your Mind is Clear, the Sun Shines All the Time: A Guidebook for Overcoming Depression takes readers on a personal journey into the murky waters of depression. Written by a survivor afflicted with deep depression for many years, the author shares a candid story about her personal battle with depression. She shows how she came to understand it, face it, and overcome it. Maschio explains that the key to overcoming depression is "critical thinking." She demonstrates that overcoming depression involves taking the time to challenge your feelings and thoughts instead of reacting to them.

The author delivers key tools to becoming a successful critical thinker allowing one to develop positive decision-making abilities. By analyzing your thought processes during difficult times and recognizing flawed thinking that can lead to misinterpreting events, she shares how you can head off the path to depression. Readers learn to challenge many influences, internal and external, and develop the ability to question their validity by looking at them from other points of view before jumping to conclusions.

With constant reflections of her own inner struggle throughout the book, Maschio shows readers how to these skills to constant negative thinking. She delivers an understanding of self-esteem, a logical look where self-esteem originates, the effects of low self-esteem, and how to master the art of raising it by employing critical thinking.

Jill Maschio's guide to overcoming depression stands out from many self-help books because it is told from the perspective of a survivor. It delivers hope to those believing life is hopeless. With over 57 million people in the US suffering from depression, the author demonstrates that we all have it in us to "walk through fear" to break free from the constant cycle of negative thoughts and achieve self-discovery.

Tracy Roberts, Write Field Services