I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression - Softcover

Real, Terrence

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684835398 ISBN 13: 9780684835396

Publisher: Scribner, 1998

Synopsis

A revolutionary and hopeful look at depression as a silent epidemic in men that manifests as workaholism, alcoholism, rage, difficulty with intimacy, and abusive behavior by the cofounder of Harvard’s Gender Research Project.

Twenty years of experience treating men and their families has convinced psychotherapist Terrence Real that depression is a silent epidemic in men—that men hide their condition from family, friends, and themselves to avoid the stigma of depression’s “un-manliness.” Problems that we think of as typically male—difficulty with intimacy, workaholism, alcoholism, abusive behavior, and rage—are really attempts to escape depression. And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children.

This groundbreaking book is the “pathway out of darkness” that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his own experiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.

About this title

Review:

When Terrence Real was studying to be a therapist, he accepted the notion that women suffered depression at rates several times that of men. Now he believes that conventional wisdom is wrong, that there has been a great cultural cover-up of depression in men. Real is convinced of the existence of a mental illness that is passed from fathers to sons in the form of rage, workaholism, distanced relationships from loved ones, and self-destructive behaviors ranging from stupid choices at work and in love to drug and alcohol abuse. Men reading I Don't Want to Talk About It will probably recognize themselves in every chapter, while women will recognize their partners--and, of course, both sexes will see their fathers in a new light.

About the Author:

Terrence Real is a psychotherapist in private practice. He has taught couples and family therapy, principally at the Family Institute of Cambridge, for twenty years. He lives with his wife and two sons in Newton, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684835398
• ISBN 13: 9780684835396
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384