You Mean I Don't Have to Feel This Way? New Help for Depression, Anxiety, and Addiction

Argues that there is a biological basis for depression and addictive disorders and discusses advances in psychopharmacology

Dowling ( The Cinderella Complex) here challenges the popular belief that depression, panic disorder, addictions and a host of other psychiatric problems result from events in childhood psychologi cal influences or moral weakness. Witness to both her daughter's and husband's severe depression, the author became convinced that biochemical--not psychological--difficulties were the cause. She presents the latest research in brain chemistry and argues that a lack of serotonin--a natural "feel-good" chemical--is responsible for an array of mental and mood disorders. Alcoholics, for example, are attempting to replace the missing chemical and may be better helped through drug therapy than by 12-step and other nonmedical treatment programs. Similarly, people who suffer from chronic depression or anxiety attacks may be cured by taking antidepressives. Although well-written and carefully researched, the book oversimplifies a serious issue and, in effect, claims that all problems can be eradicated by taking a "magic" pill, while dismissing the role of traditional psychotherapy. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Again, Dowling (Perfect Woman, 1988, etc.) uses personal experience--her daughter's depression--as the springboard for her writing, this time arguing for the primary role of brain biochemistry in a large number of illnesses frequently considered biological in origin. Dowling believes, along with Hudson and Pope (Harvard psychiatrists who identified affective spectrum disorder) that the level of serotonin, a brain hormone, has as much to do with mental status as do environmental influences, and she urges medication for depressed patients to restore and regulate equilibrium. Having seen her daughter successfully treated with an antidepressant, she eagerly encourages others to seek similar relief for mood disorders, and goes on to examine the broad range of diagnoses- -bulimia, PMS, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addictions, kleptomania--that respond to these medications. Psychiatrists, she finds, often take incomplete family histories, miss cases of depression, undermedicate, or fail to recognize and treat dual illnesses (e.g., depression and addiction). Also, most people see mood as a matter of personal control and resist professional intervention. Dowling realizes that many will resist this point of view (``Life is flattened, we feel, by a one-dimensional, chemical approach to the brain''), and she tries to persuade with anecdotal case histories, always recommending psychotherapy as part of the process, not merely to monitor dosages and possible side effects but also, as one psychiatrist sees it, to learn ``to unravel what is normal personality from what the illness has superimposed upon it.'' No researcher, Dowling admits, has established a cause-and- effect relationship between serotonin and these mood disorders, just an association, so she does not insist that her argument is more than plausible. She does insist, though, some antidepressant will always relieve these conditions, a certainty many psychiatrists will dispute. As in Dowling's previous books, readers will recognize themselves, welcome the accessible vocabulary, and appreciate the balanced presentation of related issues (will people use PMS as evidence of inferiority or reason for discrimination?). Expect the warmest response from a nonprofessional audience. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Serotonin is a brain hormone, one of several neurotransmitters that influence the way we feel and the way we think. In this book, Dowling, author of The Cinderella Complex ( LJ 6/15/81) and Perfect Women ( LJ 10/1/88), reports on the work of biopsychiatrists who are exploring the relationships between various disorders, including bulimia and compulsive gambling, and an underlying link to low levels of serotonin, for which there may be a genetic tendency. Dowling offers understanding and encouragement to those who have tried medication without results. She does not reject psychotherapy. She discusses the pros and cons of medical intervention and offers case histories, including personal experience. Recommended for self-help collections. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/91.--Ed.
- Marlene Charnizon, C.S.W, formerly with "Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.