Page 48 - NAMAH-Apr-2016

Namah Vol. 25, Issue 1, 24th April 2017

peace, light, joy or stillness. knows them all. It is just that he is lacking
enough will and faith to put them into
One of the most spectacular cases cited is the practice. The result is a growing gap between
one where a spinal deformity carried over for the person and his near ones, a gap that makes
more than three decades got spontaneously the world of the depressed excruciatingly
corrected in one session. At the end of a half- painful and hard to bear. Despite the illness
hour session, when the subject experienced being common enough and development of
that a heavy burden had cleared from the newer and effective drugs to counter it, there
chest, the spinal deformity was automatically are still a lot of gaps in our understanding
corrected. The case demonstrates that of the problem. While the lay person simply
consciousness antedates the physical form. fills these gaps with myths and superstitions
In fact, this is why we can act through that surround the depressed person, even
consciousness on the physical body. physicians are not exempt from a lack
of proper understanding of what happens
This book is of interest not only for clients but when someone is labouring under the spell
also healers as a guide to creative body-work. of depression and the strategies that can be
effectively used to counter it.
— Dr. Soumitra Basu
The above book fills in these gaps and does
The D Word: A Survivor’s Guide to Depression it effectively and with a rare finesse. On the
one hand it provides us with a comprehensive
Shubhrata Prakash, December, 2016 understanding of the state of mind of
Publisher: Pan Macmillan India someone who is going through depression
Pages: 216 through a direct first-hand account of the
Price: Rs. 176 author, making the narrative living and
ISBN: 9781509853205. interesting. On the other hand the author
takes us through the current understanding
Depression is a major challenge to psychological of the subject in a well-researched way,
caregivers. One of the commonest causes of making it very useful and practical for the
morbidity, it often strikes an unsuspecting lay person as well as treating physicians. At
client in the peak of his youth. It has many the same time, she gives us a holistic view
deceptive masks including that of physical of the subject thereby providing effective
illness. Unlike many other psychological tools for comprehensive management of
disorders that either storm into the human depression, making it a handy book even
system alerting the individual or his near for mental healthcare professionals. The
ones, depression often seeps in slowly like book thereby fills a real need of such a work
a progressively encroaching and expanding not only in the field of psychological health
darkness that engulfs thoughts and feelings, but also for general readership at large.
paralyses the will and envelops hope and Depression being such a common entity,
faith in a pall of gloom and darkness. That afflicting approximately ten percent of the
is why well-meaning advice fails and even population at some time or the other, it is
sometimes frustrates the client since the person important even for relatives to understand

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