Page 48 - NAMAH-Apr-2016
P. 48

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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