Depression Is Contagious: How the Most Common Mood Disorder Is Spreading Around the World and How to Stop It

Depression is the world's most common mood disorder, and it's spreading fast: at the current rate, the World Health Organization predicts it will leap from the fourth to the second greatest cause of human suffering and disability in the world by the year 2020. And the shocking spread of this debilitatingdisorder isn't fated by brain chemistry, genes, diet, or personal weakness, as we're too often taught -- rather, the latest research provides overwhelmingevidence that depression is far more a social problem than a medical disease. Depression doesn't just infect a single individual and then stay contained within him or her. Depression's effects reach into the interactions you have with others, rippling destructively through marriages, families, work environments, and communities like a viral contagion. Drugs can't repair or protect your relationship from depression, but the skills expert psychologist Dr. Michael D. Yapko teaches us in this powerful book can.

Dr. Yapko has identified the types of relationship patterns that lead to negative ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others and culls from the latest findings in neuroscience, social psychology, epidemiology, and genetics to provide a practical, proven plan for developing the skills and insights you need to forge stronger, healthier social connections -- and enjoy an enriching, interconnected life. While commonly prescribed drugs address some of depression's symptoms, they cannot change the social factors that cause and perpetuate the disorder. Indeed, by treat-ing a social condition as though it's a disease, the problems compound rather than diminish. The foundation for recovery is to build a healthy social life based on understanding what to expect from our relationships, what we should give, and how to relate to and accept others -- skills that have been neglected by modern society. Dr. Yapko's groundbreaking plan of action -- filled with skill-building emotional and mental exercises, anecdotes, and illuminating explanations -- shows how to:

* Think about depression in realistic ways that actually empower you to overcome it.

* Readjust your expectations of others so that you can accurately assess people and situations to avoid disappointment.

* Get off the merry-go-round of repetitive, anxious, and depressing thoughts.

* Interact with others without spreading negativity, or absorbing theirs, even when you think you can't.

* Develop motivating perspectives about your relationships in order to improve them.

* Reduce your children's vulnerability to depression.

* Build close and enduring relationships that support and fulfill you.

Provocative and groundbreaking, Depression Is Contagious is a complete path of recovery through people, not pills. You can nurture the relationships that will lift you -- and those around you -- out of depression. This empowering prescription for hope and healing shows how.